


Four Oh Three

by MikeWritesThings



Category: Apex Legends (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Child Abuse, Developing Relationship, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Healing, Hired Gun!Crypto, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Canon, Secret Identity, Secret Relationship, Slow Burn, Trans Octane | Octavio Silva
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:41:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 155,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23337061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MikeWritesThings/pseuds/MikeWritesThings
Summary: "Can you talk?" Octavio asked him."I can," Taejoon responded, and Octavio's grin widened.(Or: Taejoon Park has been killed by the Syndicate, turned into a simulacrum, and rented out by Hammond Robotics' biggest sponsor—the CEO of Silva Pharmaceuticals—to become a bodyguard for his son.)
Relationships: Crypto | Park Tae Joon/Octane | Octavio Silva, Lifeline | Ajay Che & Octane | Octavio Silva, Mila Alexander & Crypto | Park Tae Joon
Comments: 165
Kudos: 305





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> lowkey based off of [snppd_c's art](https://twitter.com/Snppd_C/status/1224172871288872960?s=19) but like with a lot of liberties taken lol
> 
> also some liberties taken to the timeline of apex!! i dont actually know the timeline so i just guessed  
> feat some of my headcanons , like octane being mixed-race and his home life etc
> 
> *this fic plays loosely with the defintion of simulacrum. crypto is more of a cyborg than a simulacrum. think of him as his hired gun skin. :]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for this chapter:  
> some violence and a little bit of blood  
> some child abuse :(( sorry octavio
> 
> and dont worry i know things may seem kinda bad rn but everything will be consensual i promiseee

Taejoon couldn’t remember much.

He remembered running. Panting, heart beating in his chest, a stitch in his side. Breathing so hard every inhale felt like cold ice being shoved down his throat. Feet stabbing the pavement as his head ached from the blood rushing through his veins, spots appearing in his vision.

He remembered all of those sensations—they had been the very last sensations he had felt while he was still alive.

They hadn’t intended to kill him, only maim him. But the bullet pierced his lung, and it filled up with blood, bubbling past his lips. Strangely enough, he didn’t feel the pain. He couldn’t see out of one eye—he was pretty sure that when he fell, the lens of his glasses shattered and pierced his pupil. But he didn’t feel any pain at all.

Well, there was actually one more thing he felt before dying.

The heat of the sun was unforgiving. Beating down on his bleeding body as hands grabbed at him, shoving a bag over his head. One hand clamped over his mouth, muffling his cries, which was strange, because he hadn’t even realized he’d been screaming. His drone was pried from his stiff hands—he had been unable to set it off in time, and that split-second fumble with it had cost him his life.

All of this was done under the blazing sun, and he wondered if his neighbors were really going to let these people kill him in broad daylight.

The answer was yes. Nobody came to his rescue, nobody shouted at the people handling him to stop, and he foolishly hoped that Mystik would come running like she always had in the past, but that didn’t happen.

As sweat pooled down his skin, mixing with the blood already congealed in the heat, Taejoon thought of Mila. It was her fault he was dying, but he didn’t mind that much. 

At least they could be dead together.

* * *

Taejoon was alive, somehow.

He was sitting in a room, blindingly white from a combination of the chandelier hanging overhead and the fact that everything around him was also white—the fur rug on the floor, the leather couch he was sitting on, even the walls were a pristine white that made the place look unlived in, though it was clearly a sitting room for a well-off family: he could see picture frames hanging on the wall, of different women but all with the same man.

He couldn’t move much, but he could hear and see, so he was definitely alive, and sitting in someone’s living room, for some reason. He wanted to speak, but couldn’t. He wanted to stand up, but was unable to.

A hand suddenly pressed against his neck, but he didn’t exactly feel it—rather, his brain told him _Someone Is Touching You,_ and the next thing he knew he was being flooded with an onslaught of information.

He suddenly knew where he was. Kishou Silva’s house. He then experienced the strange sensation of wondering who the hell Kishou Silva was, and yet instantly knowing everything about him. Forty-two, the CEO of Silva Pharmaceuticals, and he had one son, whom Taejoon is to look after.

_Wait, what?_

The person who had been touching him from behind suddenly stepped in front of him, and he met her blue eyes. He was able to identify her instantly too—Irina Komarova, of Russian descent, head maid of the Silva household. Thirty-seven. Not a threat.

_What the fuck._

“Ah, Mr. Silva, you two are back? I’ve got it working,” Irina said, and a door to Taejoon’s right slammed shut.

He was able to freely move his head now, and saw the man he somehow both knew and didn’t know at all. He was tall, with black hair and brown eyes, dressed in a crisp all-white suit, the only splash of color being a gray tie. He looked faintly annoyed, and the expression didn’t change when he locked eyes with Taejoon.

“I see,” Silva said tiredly, and began approaching him. Taejoon wanted to stand up so that the man didn’t tower over him, but all of his limbs were locked in place. He could move his head, but not much else—at least, not until Silva said in a commanding tone of voice, “Stand.”

He got to his feet quickly, as though he had been waiting for such orders. Though Taejoon’s face remained stoic (not that he could make any other expressions at the moment), inside, he was panicking. Just what the hell was going on? He had died, he was sure of it, and yet suddenly he was standing here, knowing things he should have no business knowing and unable to move unless told to.

He had a horrible inkling about what was happening, but he didn’t want to entertain the idea. It was ridiculous.

Silva grabbed his face without much care, tilting it this way and that, and Taejoon felt it, surprisingly. His hands had been planted against the surface of the leather couch, and he had been unable to feel the texture, and this coupled with the not-quite sensation of Irina touching his neck made him think he might have lost all sensation entirely. But that did not seem to be the case, which just made him more confused than he already was.

“Who am I?” Silva asked, looking at him expectantly.

“Kishou Silva,” Taejoon said. He didn’t feel as forced to respond, but rather, intently prompted to.

“Good.” Silva turned his head, and so did Taejoon. A much younger man had entered, following Silva—he looked similar to Silva with some key differences: jaw not as defined as his father’s and with hazel eyes instead of brown. His nose shape was also entirely different, matching his mother’s, whom Taejoon only knew because an image of her had been conjured up in his mind.

Like his father, he wore entirely white in the form of a peacoat and sleek white pants, though Taejoon could see the black T-shirt he wore peeking out from beneath the coat. Despite seeing this person for the first time in his life, he was able to immediately identify him as Octavio Silva.

Octavio seemed some mixture of bored and annoyed. His posture was slouched and he had clearly only been out because his father had forced him out, and the clothes were obviously not his preferred style, because he was tugging at the sleeves of his coat and adjusting the collar constantly, uncomfortable.

“This is your new guard,” Silva said, gesturing to Taejoon. “You are to behave while I am gone, and attend to your studies.”

Octavio’s eyebrows raised, and Taejoon got the sense that had he not been tired, this would have quickly turned into an argument, but he simply replied, “Yes, father.”

“Should I find that you broke it, you will not be allowed to leave your room until you can pay me back.”

Octavio’s voice got a little more derisive, but he repeated “Yes, father.”

Taejoon felt a sensation at the back of his neck again, and Silva walked away from him, holding a hard-drive in hand that Taejoon somehow knew was the reason he had all this knowledge. He glimpsed the initial on it— _H,_ printed in bold white.

_Hammond Robotics._

The room seemed to wait on tenterhooks for Silva’s footsteps to fade away, Octavio’s arms crossed over his chest, head tilted to the side as he waited. His foot was tapping impatiently, and Irina was checking over Taejoon, who couldn’t move once again, her hands brushing over his suit jacket, and what the fuck, he was wearing a suit jacket?

Finally, Octavio said, “That’s enough, ‘Rina” and Irina stepped away, bowing to them both before leaving the room. Octavio approached him, shrugging off the peacoat to reveal a black crop top that Taejoon somehow knew his father wouldn’t approve of. Words weighed on his tongue, an urge to tell the other off and ask him to put on other clothes, but he fought it back.

“Can you talk?” Octavio asked, a mischievous glint in his eye, and Taejoon wanted to run away—figure out what was going on and get as far away from this place as possible, but his feet were planted firmly on the ground, and he felt prompted to respond.

“I can,” he said.

“Sweet. You know how to fix a motorbike?”

No, he didn’t.

He’d never touched one before—Mila had always wanted one, begged Mystik to let her ride her son’s while he was away, but that dream never came to fruition, and even the mention of one was painful for Taejoon.

No, he did not know how to repair a motorbike. That should've been his answer.

And yet, somehow, he did.

“Yes,” he said, and Octavio's grin widened.

“Follow me,” the other man told him, not as commanding as his father, but it was still very clearly just that: a command. Taejoon followed obediently, hands clenching at his sides. They passed by a gilded gold mirror, the only splash of vibrant color in this all-white world, and he glimpsed his reflection in the brief moment he passed by it.

His hair was cropped short in a spiky style. He was wearing a black suit jacket and black pants, a stark contrast to his surroundings, and his torso was covered in metal, glinting bronze and steel in the chandelier light. No, scratch that—his torso was not covered in metal.

It was _made_ of metal.

* * *

Despite his newfound infinite knowledge, Taejoon learned a lot of things in his first week at the Silva household. About himself, mostly.

Firstly, it had been nearly a year since he had “died”. Irina kept a whiteboard detailing everyone’s duties in the staff room, and on it she wrote the date for each day. It had been an ambiguous “December x” for a couple of days, but on January first she wrote “Happy 2730!”, which meant he had died eight months ago. It was a little bit of a relief—he still didn’t know exactly what was happening, but he would have broken down if it had been, like, fifty years since his death, because that would mean the people he knew when he was alive would be dead by now.

Secondly, he had little to no free will unless commanded to. He was unable to avoid doing things he didn’t want to do, and even things he _thought_ he wanted to do often seemed to be prompted by the program Irina had installed into him—because under no circumstances would he have ever told Octavio “don’t eat that ramen, it’s bad for your health” had he not been under some personal orders to do so.

These urges to say things paid off in some way, however—Octavio had responded to him with “fuck off”, which Taejoon forced himself to interpret as a command, and he was suddenly able to move freely.

He spent this time exploring the house, searching for any computer he could use, but the only ones he knew of were in Silva’s study and Octavio’s room. Octavio’s computer was so overloaded with games he didn’t think he could achieve anything on it, but when he tried using Silva’s computer, he couldn’t even touch the keyboard. His fingers froze over it, limbs locked, and he realized he was forbidden— _programmed_ —to not touch it.

For three days he had feared that he was unable to touch any technology at all, until Octavio found him, whining something-or-other about “hey you’re an AI, so you’re really smart, and I need you to play this game for me so I can win this tournament” and thankfully, he had been able to do it. He wasn’t sure if it was because it was a command or if maybe it was just Silva’s personal computer he was forbidden from touching, but in any case, it was a relief nonetheless that he could do this.

Now, Taejoon just needed more free time, which was easy to come by, what with Octavio being his charge and all.

Octavio Silva, twenty years old, five feet five inches, of Latino and Asian and Native descent, diagnosed with ADHD, high school graduate, lactose intolerant and allergic to shellfish...All of this information he had been loaded with at the beginning of his new life, and none of it could have prepared him for how _difficult_ the young heir was.

Octavio did not want him around, that was evident, unless it directly benefitted him in some way, such as using Taejoon’s knowledge on motorbikes (provided by his databases) to fix his bike's master cylinder or cheating at game tournaments by using Taejoon. As such, all Taejoon had to do was follow some of his more naggy programming to annoy Octavio, who would in turn tell him to go away, and Taejoon could interpret this command as an allowance of free time.

Taejoon did this at night, mostly—urged Octavio to go to bed (because being his ‘bodyguard’ was more like being his over-glorified babysitter), suggested that he get off his video games because it was bad for his eyes (god this programming was annoying, Taejoon missed being able to play video games) and Octavio never failed to say something along the lines of, “You’re so boring. Go away, leave me alone.”

Since the rest of the house would be asleep at this time, Taejoon was able to explore without fear of getting caught. He didn’t know what exactly he was yet, but he couldn’t imagine that him looking around like this would be handled well. He wasn’t even sure if he was supposed to have his own consciousness. Nobody treated him like he should—he was always an object. An _‘it’._

Maybe it would have bothered him more if he was allowed to feel his own emotions. Because that was the third thing Taejoon discovered about himself—his feelings were not entirely his own, either.

One week passed into two, and Octavio wanted to go out. Taejoon was aware that Octavio had been kidnapped once in his life and almost kidnapped three times more, which didn’t seem to bother him that much. Rich people seemed to live in a world completely different from Taejoon’s own, in which kidnapping children was normal because it was expected that their parents would pay any price to have them back. It was unsettling to think about, but that was what Taejoon was here for. To protect Octavio.

He wasn’t quite sure how far this would extend—how he was programmed to protect the other, if he was at all equipped with some sort of weapon or had martial arts knowledge that would reveal itself in danger. He didn’t have to wonder much, though, because no sooner had Octavio emerged from the shop he had wanted to go into did a gun fire.

It was instant—Taejoon’s body moved in front of Octavio’s, metal torso positioned to block any oncoming bullets from hitting his charge, hand moving to press the other close to him while he scanned the area for threats. He was instantly connected to the network in the area—a lady two blocks down was calling the police, sobbing that her boyfriend had gotten shot in an altercation with a pickpocket. Another lady, less than fifty feet away from the first woman, was texting her mother that there was a shooter in the area.

There were security cameras in the area, located on every streetlight and outside of major shops, and with them Taejoon was able to instantly locate the perpetrator—it was almost like a beacon was shining on the thief even if he couldn’t actually see them. The thief was heading in he and Octavio’s direction, and Taejoon was overcome with the urge that he _must_ protect Octavio, first and foremost. So he shoved Octavio’s head down, which was met with an indignant squawk from him as he crouched along the pavement, trying to make their way back to the car, which he knew was bulletproof.

“What gives?” Octavio yowled as Taejoon shoved him none too gently into the backseat. The gun fired once again, but he wasn’t sure where. He flattened himself on top of the other man, because if the thief were to fire at them the bullet would simply ricochet off of Taejoon’s torso, and—

A little voice screamed in his mind: _what the hell are you doing?_

Taejoon laid flat on top of Octavio as their chauffeur drove them out of the area as quickly as she could, and he didn’t let up despite the other’s kicking and yelling and hitting.

“I’m fine! Get off of me!” Octavio yelled at him, trying to shove him off, but failing due to Taejoon’s heavy metal weight. “ _Chill!_ ”

Taejoon did not relax, still connected to the shopping center’s network, keeping an eye out for indications of the thief. Dispatch had been notified, sending the police, who were a couple of minutes away, and an ambulance would be following. The thief had been taken down by a passerby—someone was filming it on their phone, laughing. It was safe to let Octavio go.

Only when he had straightened up did he realize what he had done.

It was a little terrifying, the fact that he did not feel his own emotions. He didn’t just feel prompted to protect Octavio—he felt an actual emotional response, a _need_ , to protect Octavio, so much so that this programming literally overrode the rest, including the need to obey Octavio’s commands.

And he realized that it ran deeper than this—he did not _dislike_ Octavio. Taejoon knew that in his previous life, he would not have put up with Octavio’s incessant whining, his kicking and his yells that he was fine. His loudness, his hyperactivity, his disregard for Taejoon as a human being (he wasn’t one, though. He wasn’t. But he was. He was a human. And yet he was not one)—Taejoon would have been annoyed, would have hated to be around him, wouldn’t have even pretended to tolerate him.

But for some reason Taejoon was incapable of hating Octavio. He did not like him, either, but there was some sort of obligation within him that he must at least put Octavio’s needs above himself, and Taejoon realized that he was literally programmed to tolerate the other’s existence.

It was frustrating, and he was angry.

His anger was a good indicator that he did have some of his own emotions after all, but at the end of the day he still opened the door for Octavio and checked him for injuries, cupping his face to examine the tiny cut beneath his eye that definitely hadn’t been there the day before, before eventually being commanded to _‘leave him the fuck alone’._

So Taejoon’s actions, his words, and even some of his feelings were not his own. He was basically just a slightly higher form of AI right now, programmed to protect and adhere to the needs of some rich spoiled brat, with no free will of his own unless commanded.

 _But,_ he thought to himself, eyes finding glinting silver in the darkness of the mansion—Irina’s laptop, left out on the table in the staff room. _I can change that._

* * *

Hacking came easily to Taejoon, aided by the instant access he had to the servers surrounding him. His brain was somehow always connected to the internet, able to bypass certain security checkpoints with ease under the guise of protecting his charge, and when he ran into problems he couldn’t easily get by he used Irina’s laptop to force his way through.

He kept this up for several weeks, making his way through Hammond Robotics’ files to find any information on himself, but the fact that this was an outsider computer often barred him from even attempting to hack certain things. They had good security, he’d give them that—but he had an even better idea.

He had his own databases within him, and those databases must have some entry point into HR servers if he was created by them. If he could get his hands on the hard-drive Irina had plugged into him, he could work his way through it and try to disable some of the commands inside it to give himself more free will. In fact, if he did it right, he could pull _unlimited information_ from HR, so long as they didn’t detect that he had gone rogue.

The problem was, he had no idea where that hard-drive was located.

In Silva’s room, presumably, but he was barred entry from it, which he found out when his limbs locked in place when he got within a couple of feet from it. He tried every which way of entering, whether it be offering Irina or other maids help with cleaning or when Octavio told him to screw off, but nothing worked. It was frustrating that he wasn’t making much progress, and still stuck on babysitting duty.

He glanced to where Octavio was putting on his shoes, wanting to go out again to meet up with a friend. He stretched his arms above his head, shirt lifting to expose a sliver of abs and a bandage placed on his hip, mostly covered by the waistband of his shorts. Taejoon grabbed his wrist, stopping him from lowering his arms again, as something was prompting him to interrogate the other about his injuries.

“What’s this?” He asked quietly, gesturing to the bandage, and Octavio scoffed, pulling his wrist free from his grip.

“None of your business. C’mon, let’s go. You’re so slow.”

Taejoon pressed his lips together, fighting back the urge to pursue the subject, and followed the younger man out to the car, where the chauffeur (Delilah Jackson, twenty-nine, North American descent, not a threat...) was waiting, leaned against the door. She gave them both a nod and held the door open for Octavio, but shot Taejoon a quick look before turning her back on him and walking away.

He understood, somewhat, this type of treatment—to them, he was not a human being. He was an android who must obey all orders, who must protect Octavio Silva, and nothing more than that. They didn’t know he was sentient, that he had been a person before all of this, and something prevented him from saying so. A lock on his words, some sort of failsafe that HR must have put on him before turning him into...whatever this was. A new torture method, no doubt.

There was no use getting upset about it, so he climbed into the backseat, sitting beside Octavio, who had scooted himself as far away from Taejoon as possible and was messing with the window, sliding it up and down. They began their drive to some restaurant Octavio wanted to go to, Taejoon skipping ahead in their route with his network and accessing all security cameras within a mile ahead of them, searching for threats.

It came naturally to him at this point—one month into guarding the other, there were no longer any hang-ups about his programming. At least, not like there had been before. So long as he complied with most of his programming, he would have more free time, and more time to figure out how to disable it all.

The restaurant was fancier than anything Taejoon had ever been in, but he at least looked like he belonged with his suit jacket and slacks. Octavio, in a pair of basketball shorts and a ripped band tee probably found on his floor, looked very out of place. Taejoon watched him from the corner, talking to a dark-skinned girl with bright pink hair in buns. She looked equally as out of place, but at least put more effort into her appearance than Octavio did.

The lunch lasted a half hour, enough to make Taejoon feel tinges of jealousy as he watched everyone around him eat. Steak, he missed steak, and he never thought he would miss cup noodles so much in his life...he didn’t feel hunger, but he could smell, and could probably taste as well, but hadn’t been given the chance to. Maybe he could try the next time Octavio ordered him away.

(“Wanna share some mandu?” Mila asked, looking through an order menu online. “Mandu and kimchi, how does that sound?”

“Bulgogi too?” He asked hopefully, barely glancing up from his sketchbook.

“But we had bulgogi last time.”

“No we didn’t. We had crab cakes.”

Mila rolled her eyes and added bulgogi to their order, and when she thought he wasn’t looking, added a crab cake for herself too. He wouldn’t mind a crab cake, now.)

The lunch didn’t last very long—Octavio stood up before he had even finished his food, storming away, and Taejoon followed, sparing a glance to the girl he was leaving behind, and the database within him recognized her. Ajay Che, twenty-one, Octavio’s best friend from high school...though the conversation didn’t seem to end very well.

He had questions, but wasn’t able to ask them. Delilah pulled to the curb carefully while Octavio fumed beside him, angrier than Taejoon had ever seen him. In the month he had been assigned to Octavio, he’d rarely seen him in a mood like this. Octavio got annoyed frequently, a result of being cooped up inside too long, but had never been angry, not even when telling Taejoon to go away. The anger continued in the car, Octavio sliding down in his seat and pressing his feet against the glass dividing them and Delilah, pushing against it so hard Taejoon was almost worried it would break.

About halfway to the house, Octavio started mumbling to himself, clearly unable to stay silent for longer than a couple of minutes.

“She’s fucking _leaving_ me...all by my self...” He kicked the glass harder, his shirt riding up against his seatbelt to reveal that bandage on his hip once again. “Everyone just fucking leaves, huh.”

Taejoon stared at him, prompted to respond to the other’s clear emotional distress, but not really wanting to hear about his problems.

“War profiteers and blah blah blah...who _gives_ a shit?” Octavio gave the glass another kick and Delilah glanced at him from the rearview, but didn’t tell him to stop, so he kicked again. “She can’t just leave, anyways. She doesn’t have any money. She’ll come back.”

“What’s the matter?” Taejoon finally asked, and Octavio’s head jerked towards him, almost like he had forgotten he was there. He sneered at Taejoon, returning his attention to the window and messing with the button once again.

“You wouldn’t get it,” Octavio said, and Taejoon didn’t know if he meant it because he didn’t know the two’s personal history or if this was once again a slight against him not being human.

They got to the house and Octavio slammed the door in his face, and Taejoon wished once again that he was able to dislike him—but he went up to check on him anyways, because he was programmed to do so.

* * *

It seemed that Taejoon’s need to protect Octavio under all circumstances wasn’t actually true. He did not need to protect Octavio from every bit of danger—in fact, he was apparently strictly forbidden from interfering when his father was beating the shit out of him.

Because that was what was happening right now.

His limbs were locked in place as he watched the scene unfold. Kishou Silva had been drunk when he got home for the first time in weeks, back from his business trip in Solace and apparently angry enough to start a fight.

Taejoon had been assisting a MRVN in repairing the boiler, something Irina had commanded him to do since he had nothing else going on, but once he heard Octavio’s cries of pain he immediately dashed across the house to the source of the noises, being driven by his programming.

His body froze when he saw what exactly was going on—Silva had evidently thrown something at Octavio, and was shouting at him about sneaking out of the house. Octavio was crouched on the floor, covering his head in case anything else got thrown his way. Programming aside, it was making Taejoon uncomfortable, and he wanted to raise a hand to stop Silva, but he couldn’t move at all. Just stood and watched as Silva threw some expensive china display piece at his son.

He wondered what kind of fucked up ruling allowed this to happen, that he was supposed to protect Octavio but couldn’t even step in when he was actively in harm’s way.

(“Fuck off,” he remembered Octavio’s voice shouting on Taejoon’s very first day of consciousness. It had been while he was still in the garage, repairing that motorbike on Octavio’s orders. He remembered hearing a thud from upstairs, had wondered what it had been, but was too deep in his own panic to truly care. He wondered now if his programming knew that something had happened with his father and had prevented him from shifting into that protective mode he got when Octavio was in danger.)

“This is what you’ve been doing? Sneaking out when you should be studying?” Silva roared, throwing what looked like the crushed remains of a motorcycle helmet, and it smashed against the wall, breaking apart even more.

“I’m a grown-ass man!” Octavio yelled back, and was hit again. His eyes found Taejoon’s across the room, wide and intense, angry and upset at the same time. An almost pleading sort of look, but Taejoon couldn’t move from this position, couldn’t help the other when he actually needed it, and he hated it.

Taejoon tried reaching his network to contact the police, but he was unable to notify them. Something inside him forcibly shut him out, and he lost all connection as Octavio was hit one last time. Silva stumbled out of the room, barking orders at Irina to come clean up the mess. She hurried inside, keeping her head bent low to avoid making eye contact with Octavio, who was still on the floor, curled up to protect himself from getting hit.

When he could no longer hear Silva’s footsteps, Taejoon’s limbs unlocked themselves and he rushed forward on instinct, back online as he ran through every best way to patch up cuts and bruises like this. He placed his hands on the other’s face and tilted his head up to see if he had been hit there. There was a scar on the left side of his cheek, new, but not that new. It looked like it had been there for an hour at least, not quite as fresh as the rest on his body.

He tried getting Octavio to stand, but he remained on the floor, poking at the shards on the fur rug and purposely cutting up his own fingers, staining the pure white with red. Feeling a little frustrated, Taejoon scooped him up into his arms, which was much easier to do than he thought it would be. He was stronger in this form, it seemed. He carried his charge up the stairs, bypassing the many bathrooms on the first floor so he could use Octavio’s personal one.

He sat the other down on the edge of his bathtub, taking note of the bruises already forming on his face and arms, the cuts on his elbows and fingers from where he had made contact with the glass. He moved to lift the other’s shirt for him, but Octavio shoved his hands away once, twice, three times before Taejoon’s programming got the memo that it was a silent order and stopped him from trying again.

Octavio watched him search beneath his sink for gauze and disinfectant, anger still blazing in his eyes, but posture slumped, unusually still.

“Do you feel pain?” Octavio asked, voice loud in the silence of the room. Taejoon wanted to pause and give that question some thought—because he hadn’t really figured out the answer to that himself yet—but he was prompted to say,

“No.”

He turned around and was immediately shoved off-balance; Octavio had punched him right where his stomach used to be with enough force to make him sway. He didn’t necessarily feel it—just had a little voice inside him telling him someone had hit him there. Octavio shook his hand, staring at his split knuckles and cut fingers, anger fading away into something else.

“I wish you did,” he said.

Taejoon stared at the other, waiting for him to hit him again or do something else, but he just sat there, so Taejoon knelt down to patch him up. A quick scan told him that he didn’t need the hospital, that this would all heal in a couple of days. He wanted to ask what had prompted his father to begin hitting him, if this was a regular occurrence or not, but his mouth refused to open and ask the question, and Octavio gave him no answers. 

His hand moved to the other’s hip, wanting to check what was under the bandage and give him a fresh one, but Octavio stood up suddenly, and told him to go away. So Taejoon put away his things and used this free time to go downstairs, planning on using Irina’s laptop again.

He didn’t like the conflicting orders inside of him. He didn’t like that he felt so obligated to protect Octavio, didn’t like that he couldn’t tell where the obligation started and where his true emotions began. Even if he was incapable of feeling any negative emotions towards Octavio, he still pitied him somewhat, and most of all he hated himself for being unable to stop Silva from hitting the other. He had vague memories of one of his foster parents slapping Mila—he felt just as helpless now as he felt back then.

Taejoon suddenly paused, foot hovering over something that he had almost stepped on in the middle of the hallway. It was right in front of the laundry room, where he heard Irina and one of the other maids washing Silva’s clothes. Bending down, he picked the object up, taking in the bold white letters printed on one side.

 _HR._ Hammond Robotics.

Irina must have accidentally dropped it when unpacking Kishou’s things.

Taejoon couldn’t smile, but knew that if he was able to, he would be grinning from ear-to-ear. This careless little mistake would soon be his way to freedom—he just needed a little more free time, a little more unnecessary concern towards Octavio, and then he could escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ty for reading !! id love some feedback !! this is the first time ive ever done this sort of au!!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i have been CONSTANTLY exhausted these past few days bc of self quarantine so i apologize thoroughly for the mistake-ridden first chapter that was just. absolutely full of typos and grammar mistakes . i patched some of it up the morning after i posted it but its still got some awkward writing sowwy
> 
> im still like rly fucking tired but if i dont write Something during this im going to go crazy so pls enjoy and ill fix all mistakes later !!!

“I wanna be rich,” Mila said out of the blue.

They were both fourteen, sitting outside a convenience store that sometimes took pity on them and gave them expired snacks. Mila was throwing a blue rubber ball at the brick wall, a cycle of throwing and catching and throwing again. Taejoon was sitting behind her, occasionally catching the ball if it bounced past her, but mostly focused on the book he had stolen from their previous foster parents’ house.

They would be moving to yet another foster home tomorrow—their social worker had let them outside today to play, clearly sick of seeing their faces so many times in the past six months. It certainly wouldn’t be the last time, either, but that was left unsaid.

He looked up at her words, eyebrows raising as she threw the ball and it nearly hit her in the face when she tried to catch it.

“How are you going to become rich?” He asked, and she cocked her head to the side, thinking for a moment. Her black nail polish was chipped in several places, in desperate need of a redo, but she had wasted the last of her polish on painting the nails of his pinky and ring fingers when he was asleep. He thought about stealing some more from the convenience store, but didn’t want to risk their only consistent supply of snacks shunting them out.

Finally, Mila threw her ball again. “I dunno. Maybe get fostered by a rich family and steal from them.”

“A rich family? Where?” Taejoon snorted. They lived in a very poor area, and the families they were fostered to weren’t much better off.

“Maybe we could hop onto a ship to Psamathe,” Mila said. She threw the ball and it bounced right over her shoulder, directly into Taejoon’s lap. “Everybody’s rich there.”

“We’d just get sent right back.”

“I think you’d fit in with rich people,” Mila said, approaching him and nudging his knee with her sneaker. “You look kind of snooty.”

Taejoon rolled his eyes and picked up the ball, tossing it over her head. She jumped up and caught it, smirking at his failed attempt at throwing it elsewhere. “I wouldn’t fit in on Psamathe. Maybe you can take the kid off the streets, but you’ll never take the street out of the kid.”

“You sound _so_ fucking lame. And corny.”

“Shut up.”

* * *

The hard-drive was easy to get into—as in, it didn’t have a lot of security. But there did seem to be an endless amount of useless code that would take forever to work through, and it would take a little longer than he thought to undo it all.

He left it alone for a couple of days in case Silva noticed that the hard-drive was missing, but he didn’t, going about his work and even telling the staff he’d be away for another business trip next month. He was less worried about Irina—she hadn’t noticed he’d been using her laptop this whole time, and was a bit of a ditz when it came to technology anyways.

But aside from that, Taejoon was once again uncomfortable.

The whole house acted as if nothing had happened the other day. Not Kishou, not Octavio, and not any of the staff. Not that there were many to begin with—Irina, Delilah, another driver he hadn’t met yet, two other maids and a gardener, all female, were the only staff present, which was a rather low number of staff for the amount of money Kishou made. Not that Taejoon was suddenly an expert on such things, but being in the presence of more rich families in this past month than he had in a lifetime was enough to clue him in on some aspects of this.

Kishou’s staff was all-female, unlike other families, who had an even mix of male and female workers, and Taejoon didn’t know the reason. He knew the reason for a lot of things in this house—why the layout was this way or why they ate certain things on certain days—because of the information that had been programmed into him, but he wasn’t able to pinpoint why the low number of staff and why they were all female.

He hadn’t even met everyone in the house yet—aside from the driver he had yet to see, he was aware that Kishou had a wife who was out on some vacation, and a secretary who occasionally came to visit for conference calls made at home. He wondered if either of them were aware of what happened to Octavio, if that was a one-time occurrence or not. 

(It probably wasn’t.)

It made him uncomfortable, and he wanted to say something about it, but was prevented from doing so. He wondered what kind of person programmed a robot to protect someone from everyone but their own family. If he had been told to do that back when he and Mila still worked in IT, he would have reported it to the police.

Taejoon did try checking up on Octavio more frequently, but was always shoved away or scoffed at. He was stuck at a weird point; he wanted to be frustrated with Octavio for not allowing him to do his job, but he was incapable of truly being mad at him, and he didn’t even want to do this job at all. He just wanted to be free of this programming, to set all of this aside and go home with his own free will.

(If he even had a home to return to.)

He was doing just this—trying to undo his programming with that hard-drive—when he sensed someone not far from him. Taejoon quickly pulled the hard-drive out and closed everything down on the laptop, leaving behind no trace of his presence. He got to his feet quickly and stood silently in front of the wall, completely still in case the person nearby discovered him. He’d only slept a couple of times (if you could even call it that), and he feigned this now, closing his eyes and pressing his back flat against the white wall behind him.

The person moved quietly through the house, purposely stepping on the edges of floorboards to avoid creaking them, and Taejoon peeked one eye open, wondering who was up this late at night. To his surprise it was Octavio, a motorcycle helmet tucked under his arm and wearing a leather jacket. Before he could restrain himself he blurted out “Where are you going?” and Octavio hissed under his breath, throwing a look his way.

“None of your business,” Octavio said, somewhat scathingly. Despite his avoidance of mentioning the subject, Taejoon realized the other was still thinking about the other day. Guilt flooded him, but he shoved it down.

“It is,” Taejoon responded steadily. If Octavio was sneaking out, something inside him wouldn’t let him get away with it—and he felt obligated to make sure he was safe after that whole fiasco.

“What’re you gonna do? Stop me?” Octavio asked, and kept walking. Taejoon followed, somewhat curious about what the son of a CEO got up to when he thought no one was looking.

Octavio shot him another look. “What are you doing?”

“Following you.”

“Well, I forbid you from touching me.”

They made their way down the large, grand staircase that connected the first and ground floors, a good foot apart because Taejoon was prevented from getting too close to him, but was still able to follow him. They avoided the front door and instead went to the large back door that would lead them to the garage, which Taejoon had only been inside of once.

Octavio paused before it, craning his neck up to look at a white device clipped to the top, a green light blinking. An alarm.

“Fuck,” he mumbled, and Taejoon closed his eyes. He couldn’t believe he was about to do this, and he wasn’t sure if he would even be able to, but...

He was connected to the house; he could disable the alarm, but that would in turn ring another alarm directly in Kishou’s room...no matter, he could disable that one as well...but only temporarily.

Surprisingly, he was allowed to do it. He wondered if it was because he was linked to the security network, being Octavio’s bodyguard. With a feeble electric noise, the light above them stopped blinking before turning blue.

Octavio looked confused, and cautiously reached out his hand, twisting the doorknob and pulling the door open. Nothing happened.

He looked back at Taejoon.

“Did you...?”

“Yeah,” Taejoon said. He wasn’t able to lie.

Octavio squinted at him, as if searching for ulterior motives. Not that Taejoon could have any—at least, in Octavio’s eyes, he was nothing more than a robot. And yet the other man seemed to decide something, stepping out into the garage cautiously and telling him, “You can come, if you want.”

_If you want._

A strange choice of words—and the only choice he had been given to make since living again. Everything else had been an order, a command, a simple adherence to his programming. But this was clearly an open-ended command. He could go, or he could stay. He didn’t _have_ to do one or the other.

It was a strange sensation, feeling so much relief at the simplest, smallest thing such as getting to make his own decision for himself. It was dumb, and yet he felt human again.

“I’ll go,” he said, and the other man ushered him out into the garage before slamming the door shut behind them.

Octavio walked right past the motorbike Taejoon had repaired weeks ago, grabbing at a tarp and pulling on it with all his might, unveiling a sleek, shiny green motorcycle with stenciled letters on the side, a shortened version of his name— _OCT._

“This is my baby,” Octavio crooned, putting his helmet on so Taejoon could no longer see his expression. He patted the plush seat, swinging a leg over it, which was kind of comical to watch with his short stature. Taejoon probably wouldn’t have looked much better if he sat on this bike in his previous life, but as it stood now, he was a couple inches taller than he was previously. Probably to make him more intimidating, since he was supposed to be a bodyguard.

He suddenly realized Octavio was waiting for him to sit on the bike too, if his fingers tapping against the handles impatiently meant anything, and Taejoon approached, but stopped short of getting on. He was physically unable to.

“You can touch me,” Octavio said, who seemed to have worked out that Taejoon was unable to disobey most of his commands.

Taejoon sat behind Octavio, feeling a little awkward due to the position. He didn’t want to touch the other’s waist or press up against his back, so he planted his hands firmly on the seat, gripping it hard. This was fine. This would work.

“Dude,” Octavio said. “I don’t know how to repair robots, man. If you fall off and break, I don’t know what my dad’s going to do to me.”

He said it in a lighthearted way, but Taejoon flinched internally and raised his hands to grip Octavio’s hips, and, still feeling insecure about that position, moved to slide his arms around his waist. This was awkward, but at least Taejoon wouldn’t fly off. Probably.

“What if your father hears you leaving?” Taejoon was able to ask by tricking himself into thinking that it was a matter of safety. Well, it technically was...

“He won’t. I do this all the time.” Octavio’s voice had a tinge of humor in it, as if the memory was funny. “He only found out I was sneaking out the other day because he came home as soon as I came back.”

His motorcycle came to life, revving loudly in the air, and Taejoon flinched again. They suddenly shot forward, way too fast to be a safe starting speed, and he pressed against Octavio’s back more tightly, feeling the leather of his jacket against his cheek.

Octavio had not provided him a helmet—maybe he had assumed it wouldn’t make much of a difference, but Taejoon’s eyes were watering against the harsh wind as they sped down the road, past the gates that had been left open by someone careless—or perhaps purposely left open by Octavio.

Well, to be specific, only his left eye was watering. His right eye seemed fine, and he wondered if it was cybernetic. He had a vague memory of his glasses shattering and piercing his pupil...when he had been “rebuilt”, did they replace his eye? Was it certain now that half of him was real and the other half was robotic? Where did the human part of him begin and end?

He didn’t want to think about that right now.

They didn’t drive for too long—they got to their destination quickly because there was little to no traffic this late, Taejoon occasionally checking certain highways with his network at Octavio’s request to see which had the least amount of other people on it so they could speed by.

They arrived at a dirt track, lit on all sides by stadium lights with bleachers rising high in the air. Taejoon watched a pair of beaten-up pick-up trucks race each other round and round with interest as Octavio approached, having never seen drag-racing up close. Their tires kicked up dirt and dust into the air, forming beige clouds that made visibility hard, but the crowd seemed to love it anyways, cheering and whooping for the car they wanted to win.

The two did not park in the gravelly parking lot with the rest of the spectators’ cars, instead taking a different, more direct route to a line of other motorcycles and cars with their owners hanging around, talking to one another and laughing.

“You’re not going to race, are you?” Taejoon asked, framing it from a concerned point of view once again. He was getting much easier at speaking freely even if questions weren’t directed at him, so long as he pretended that it was for the safety of Octavio.

“Oh, I am. I do this every week.”

Octavio kicked the stand down and pried Taejoon’s arms off of him, dismounting with ease. Taejoon slid off with a little more difficulty than the other man had, having never ridden one of these things before. Octavio was gone in the blink of an eye, talking to a much older gentleman near the gate to the track.

Taejoon approached them both, sweeping the area and looking for anything particularly dangerous. A quick scan told him all of these vehicles had plenty of fuel and weren’t likely to blow a fuse anytime soon, and that none of the people around him were carrying weapons save for a guard with a Swiss Army knife in his back pocket. Deeming him not a threat, he tuned in to what Octavio and the gentleman were discussing, listening to their conversation.

“Almost took you off the roster, it took you so long,” the gentleman was huffing around his beard, flipping the pages on his clipboard.

“But I’m here now! Pretty please?” Octavio whined, digging his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, where Taejoon knew he had wads of cash prepared to use as a bribe. 

The older man crossed his arms, giving Octavio an up-and-down look, before his shoulders slumped and he gave in.

“I guess.”

Octavio let out a loud noise of excitement, pumping his fist, but the man was quick to add,

“The next time you’re this late, you’ll have to race against Big Jim.”

“But he’s _slow,_ ” Octavio complained, letting his hand drop to his side.

“Yeah, well, can’t have the others claim I’m playing favorites, Silva.”

“‘Favorites’? You’re _so_ unfair to me.”

The old man guffawed, before tilting his head up at Taejoon and asking, “New boyfriend?”

“I’m his bodyguard,” Taejoon said. The man’s eyebrows furrowed, shooting Octavio a look.

“Does he speak English?” He asked.

“Dunno yet,” Octavio shrugged. “He’s a robot.”

Taejoon frowned. What were they talking about?...

“Anyways, thanks, amigo. I owe you one.” Octavio shot the man finger guns before leading Taejoon somewhere else while he pondered just what had happened. It came to him when Octavio stopped outside a food stand, looking up at the menu and saying aloud,

“Don’t suppose you can eat, can you?”

With a little jolt Taejoon realized that for the past month he had been speaking Spanish without realizing it. He had always been able to process Octavio, Kishou, and everyone else’s words, so he had assumed that they were speaking English, because he highly doubted that they were speaking Korean. 

But after having witnessed Octavio switch from Spanish to English and back to Spanish, and realizing that they were both different languages despite Taejoon being able to understand both of them, he wondered if he could now just understand and speak all languages. He hadn’t known a lick of Spanish before, but had apparently been speaking it consistently for the past month without realizing. If he could speak all languages, he wasn’t sure how to switch between them, because he had evidently responded to that man in Spanish.

All that aside, he was now being presented with a dilemma: the part inside of him that wanted to say honestly _no, I can not eat,_ and the part of him that was desperate to taste things again. If he could smell he could most certainly taste, and though he might not feel hunger, he wanted to enjoy something as simple as the taste of a corndog again.

(Could he even swallow it?

Where would the food go...?)

“No,” he finally said, and Octavio laughed.

“I knew that. I don’t know why I asked.”

The night passed with a mixture of mounting anxiety and excitement as he waited for Octavio’s turn on the tracks. The man had pretty much left him behind, gripping the guardrails tightly and yelling at certain people or hyping them up, clearly having a lot of fun.

Taejoon had never seen him like this—he was somewhat more reserved at home, avoiding everyone else in the house so he could play video games in his room, doing everything but study for the school his father was trying to get him into for business. Sure, Octavio was hyperactive and impatient in the form of constant movement, but not like this.

Here, free of whatever restraints that had kept him quiet at home, he screamed. He yelled obnoxiously, bumped elbows with others and loudly discussed the mechanics of his bike to anybody who would listen, and in a crowd full of people with the same interests as him, the number of people willing to listen to him was high. He clearly knew many people here, and it made Taejoon miss home—the convenience store, Mila, Mystik, hell, even his social worker.

Taejoon envied the other’s freedom to do this, to have an outlet where he could be unabashedly _him,_ to do what he wanted and talk to people about things he wanted to talk about.

Taejoon didn’t have that luxury. Not anymore.

His mood soured over this fact—not towards Octavio personally, but towards the event as a whole. When it was finally Octavio’s turn to race against a woman with dark hair fluttering from beneath her motorcycle helmet, Taejoon ran an analysis on who the likely winner would be. He hadn’t seen either of them race yet, so there was a lot up in the air, but their motorcycles seemed evenly matched in power. Octavio could use a little more fuel, but if it was only the one race, he should be fine.

The crowd whooped as the race started, and Taejoon wished he could step away from the rowdiness of it all, but he was unable to. It was like there was a hook where his navel should be, keeping him firmly planted there, and it made him somewhat nauseous to move away. Or, as nauseous as he could feel when he was at least part robot. 

(God, he had to figure this all out someday...)

He raised his eyes to the pitch-black sky, no stars in sight. He missed his hometown, where he could at least see a couple twinkling out if Mila made him stay up late enough.

(“Maybe we could hop on a ship to Psamathe,” Mila’s voice echoed in his head.

Psamathe wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.)

Taejoon returned his attention to Octavio, who was nothing more than a green blur on the dirt tracks. The races seemed to be set up so that the first to complete five laps and cross the finish line would be the winner—he hadn’t been paying attention and lost track of the laps, but it seemed that Octavio and the woman were neck-and-neck. 

The woman was leaned forward, feet tucked in securely and arms steady on the handles of her bike. Octavio’s feet were closer to the ground, in danger of dragging. He was leaned forward as well, but his arms weren’t as steady whenever he made turns. The difference in their postures spoke to their experience—Taejoon couldn't imagine that Octavio had had many chances to ride like this.

The crowd whooped every time they sped by during their laps, and he realized that the older gentleman from before was holding up his fingers, counting the laps. That was the fourth lap, which meant they would be on their final one now.

Taejoon watched the two, trying to predict who would be the first to finish judging by their speed, but Octavio did something unexpected—he took an extremely sharp turn at a curve, evidently trying to get himself at least a brief second ahead of the woman, but it was too sudden, and he crashed to the ground. He rolled onto the dirt, the visor of his helmet cracking open while his bike skidded off of the track, thankfully out of the way of the spectators, towards the forest that surrounded one side of the track.

Taejoon was halfway there before he knew it, the crowd going _‘awww’_ at the sight of the other laying in the dirt, chest heaving. His feet had carried him forward, aided by programming as he internally searched for the nearest hospital in case he needed one. He knelt beside Octavio, reaching a hand out to see if he was still conscious, but his charge suddenly sat up, laughing.

“Oh man,” he giggled, and took his helmet off, revealing a bloody nose and a small cut over his left eye where his visor had cracked. “That was _awesome._ ”

Taejoon tilted the other’s face towards him, trying to get a good look at his eyes under the bright stadium lights to see if he had a concussion, but someone was suddenly shoving him away, and he looked to see that a man with a large red cross on shirt was tending to Octavio.

He felt a surge of protectiveness overcome him— _he_ was supposed to be looking after Octavio, not this random person—but it faded away as quickly as it came when he realized what he’d been thinking. Sighing internally, he watched the woman Octavio had been racing against approach them, her helmet braced against her hip with one arm.

“ _Krass,_ kid, that was something else,” she said in lightly-accented English. Now that Taejoon was able to discern when people were speaking different languages, it was a little jarring to hear others speak now.

“You think so?” Octavio asked excitedly, before jerking his head away from the medic, who was trying to shine a light into his eyes. “I’m _fine,_ compadre. Hey—er—whatever your name is, did you film that? Can you film things?”

Taejoon realized that Octavio was referring to him when his head swiveled, grinning at him unexpectedly, lips and teeth stained red from his nosebleed.

Did he not have a name? Not even a fake one, or a serial number, or whatever? Or had Octavio just simply never bothered to learn if he had one? Why didn’t Taejoon know if he had a name? He couldn’t say his _own_ name—he was once again prevented from doing so—but he did have one, right? Didn’t he?

“I can’t film things,” he answered, because he was prompted to, but he was still reeling from being referred to that way. He shouldn’t be surprised anymore, but it was still a blow somewhat that he didn’t even have some sort of title to be known as. 

_Why should you? You’re not human anymore._

The woman helped Octavio to his feet and they talked some more, Taejoon trailing behind, still thinking about it. He wished he hadn’t tagged along now, had stayed at home and worked through that hard-drive so he could grab Octavio by the collar of his dirtied leather jacket and tell him _I have a name and it is Taejoon Park._

But he couldn’t do that. He had decided to come along for some stupid reason, like feeling human again. If that even meant anything anymore.

He was still thinking about it by the time Octavio pulled him onto his bike, beaten-up and in an unsure state, but still drivable. He wrapped his arms around the other’s waist and realized just how small the other was compared to him—thin, short, barely older than a teenager. Taejoon could crush him, if he wanted to, in this new form. 

He wished he could. He wished he didn’t feel so obligated, so forced, to like the other.

He felt even more inhuman at these thoughts. His body had already been changed enough, taller and stronger and metal, and he didn’t want to be reminded of it while touching the other. But the difference was jarring. Taejoon knew that in his previous body, he would have been closer to Octavio in height—not quite as short, but not this tall, either. And certainly not this strong.

His hands tightened on the other’s body, feeling ribs that had been bruised not too long ago, feeling the steady rise and fall of his chest that Taejoon could not replicate. Octavio was too easy to break.

An electric shock tingled throughout his body, painful enough to make him grunt, mind going blank and white from the pain. He wondered if it was some sort of internal response to the sudden increase of negative thoughts about Octavio, because while he couldn’t outright dislike the other, he was apparently capable of thinking about hurting him. That scared him, somewhat. He wouldn’t be any better than Kishou if he did that, so he tried shoving all of those thoughts to the back of his mind, and focused instead on the rushing wind in his hair and against his face.

They arrived at the house and Taejoon bypassed the security for Octavio again, but forcibly made his way into the other’s bathroom to pull out the hydrogen peroxide and a couple of bandaids. Octavio let him tend to him, perhaps too tired to protest, because it was four in the morning and the night had been eventful for him. Taejoon wondered if this was where the bandage on the other’s hip had come from and that scar on his cheek—racing. Once a week. He wondered how he had never noticed before.

He placed his hand on the other’s jaw to prevent him from jerking away and shoved his lamp light right in front of his face to see how his pupils would dilate. Normal—no concussion, then. Octavio shoved him away with a “what gives?”, before flopping down onto the bed, getting it dirty from his filthy hair and dust-stained skin. At least the leather jacket was discarded on the floor, but it was still disgusting.

“Take a shower,” Taejoon was prompted to say, putting away the bandaids and closing the bottle of hydrogen peroxide.

“Make me,” Octavio said, eyes still closed.

A wrong choice of words—Taejoon, in need of venting out some of his frustrations, stomped to the other’s bathroom, turning the knob and starting the powerful spray from the showerhead. He missed taking showers too—the relaxing feeling of water running down his back, of washing his hair. Octavio didn’t realize how lucky he was to even have the ability to take a shower without short-circuiting.

(Well, he didn’t know if he would short-circuit. He was too afraid to try.)

He yanked the shower curtain open before making his way back to Octavio, who hadn’t realized what was going on yet.

Taejoon picked Octavio up easily, earning him an indignant and tired yelp.

“Hey, what gives-?”

He carried the other to the bathroom and dumped him right into the bathtub, who thrashed about, eyes wide open now as the spray of water soaked through his dirt-stained clothes.

“What the fuck?!” He yelled, trying to scramble to his feet, but he clumsily slid against the bathtub and fell back down onto his elbows. “Are you fucking _broken?_ ”

“Take a shower,” Taejoon repeated, and Octavio glared up at him, his sopping wet hair getting into his eyes, now. He was ordered to get out, but no sooner had his back turned did Octavio’s soaking wet shirt hit the back of his head. With a sigh he closed the door behind him and discarded Octavio’s dirty shirt into the laundry basket, deciding that that was Irina’s problem.

He felt no obligation to stay, so he made his way back downstairs, checking the clock. It was about four-thirty...He had an hour and a half to start working on this hard-drive and at least disable some of the things within it before Irina and the others woke up to start the day.

Sitting back down at the laptop, he plugged the hard-drive back in, fingers flying across the keyboard with ease as he worked his way through the unnecessary amount of code inside. Nothing particularly new or interesting yet, just an endless string of numbers and letters to make his life harder than it already was.

Soon, the rays of the sun were beginning to peek out over the pristine white gate that shielded the Silva estate from the rest of the world, shining through the large windows in the sitting room that Taejoon sat in. He had maybe fifteen minutes until the others woke up, and he had hardly made a dent in the thing’s security. He was about to turn it off, save it for another day, when the screen flashed green and several pop-ups appeared.

Squinting at all the new information before him, he realized that it was every single command programmed into him, mixed with all the information on the people in Kishou and Octavio’s lives, the database consisting mostly of employees, distant family members and close friends.

Most interestingly, however, was the title of the files listed inside: _Project/Crypto._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is it homoerotic yet or do i need to ramp it up before we reach actual sexual tension
> 
> anyways this pandemic / quarantine is like Seriously bad for my mental health it is a BAD time to have untreated adhd my dudes. 
> 
> pls drop a review ! im rly on the fence about this au bc im experimenting w things ive never written about before !


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sowwy for the wait i got sick :(

Taejoon had undergone intensive surgery before dying.

They had tried keeping him alive—not saving him, by no means did they have that sort of mercy in them—but they did try to keep his body from failing. They did not succeed, and instead tried reforming him into a simulacrum with his mind intact, turning to Hammond Robotics for help. They had apparently been trying to get information from him, but it didn’t work, and he had been unresponsive. He was deemed a failure, and they dropped the project and converted his new body into a normal servant droid.

One of HR’s and the Syndicate’s biggest sponsors, the CEO of Silva Pharmaceuticals, who provided respawn technology and medkits for their popular Apex games, was in need of a bodyguard (babysitter) for his son now that he had graduated high school and his lifelong tutor quit. So the Syndicate provided him Taejoon without ever mentioning the fact that half the body of his new bodyguard was made up of the salvaged remains of a hacker they’d put out an arrest warrant for a year ago—in fact, only few knew of his true nature. 

It was an embarrassing failure on the Syndicate’s behalf that someone had come across their prediction algorithm, and an even bigger failure that they had been unable to keep that person alive to answer their questions. So most of those who programmed him hardly knew his true nature, and in programming him, didn’t set up a failsafe in case he woke up—and he did. Even if he didn’t initially have free will, he was still very much _alive._

So now here Taejoon sat, in the home of one of the biggest sponsors of the people who had killed him, with an unlimited source of knowledge from them and their servers now that he had undone a good portion of the chains keeping him from having his own free will. It was almost careless, really, that they had assigned him to bodyguard the precious son of one of their most important assets.

All Taejoon had to do was harm Octavio, maybe even kill him, and the Syndicate’s reputation would tank. Kishou would pull funding and they would lose an important aspect of the Apex games, their biggest money-maker. Nobody would buy technology from them anymore, not when it proved to be so violent and dangerous. Hell, maybe even MRVNs would lose their place on the market.

It would be easy. Octavio’s chin was in his hand right now, face tilted up towards him. His hazel eyes were staring up at him, blazing. The only thing keeping him from jerking out of Taejoon’s grasp was the blade held to his face, too close to his neck for comfort.

“Keep still,” Taejoon said, because Octavio was fidgeting anyways.

“I can shave my damn self,” Octavio responded. He’d been in a pissy mood all day for reasons Taejoon didn’t care to figure out, but it was at its most problematic here with such a sharp object against his skin.

“Then why haven’t you?” Taejoon asked, trying not to sound frustrated.

“Boring.”

He fought back the urge to purse his lips and tilted Octavio’s face to the side, sliding the blade cleanly down his cheek. Octavio’s facial hair grew in uneven patches—not because of a bad shaving job (which Taejoon suspected he had one of the maids help him shave) but simply because it just grew that way. His father had demanded he shave for tonight because of how it looked, so here they sat in Octavio’s room, hours before some big business party.

Taejoon had free will now, but was still operating like everything was the same to avoid suspicion. He took orders like he normally would, refrained from sarcastic comments he wouldn’t have normally made, and it felt somehow even more dehumanizing to him now, but he rebelled in small ways. Like when Octavio purposely flicked a wad of shaving cream onto his clean black pants, and he pretended to ‘accidentally’ nick the other’s jaw.

“Ow!” He winced, much too exaggerated for the tiny cut on his face.

“Sorry,” Taejoon said, fighting to keep his tone neutral. That was a hard part of being himself again—having to maintain the same robotic inflection as before. “You are moving too much.”

Octavio stared at him, eyebrows furrowed, but he didn’t say anything as Taejoon tilted his face again, slicing the blade with precision. Really, it would be all too easy to move it lower, cut open the other’s throat—but he didn’t want to do that. Something inside of him still prevented himself from hating the other, so he went on with the job, made easier by the fact that Octavio had gone unnaturally still.

Taejoon finished up and moved to pat down the other’s face with a towel, but before he could, Octavio said in an accusing sort of voice,

“You smiled.”

Taejoon paused, towel in hand. “What?”

“Just now,” Octavio said, reaching a hand up to touch the bleeding mark on his face. “You smiled after you cut me.”

“You’re mistaken,” Taejoon lied. Lying felt good. 

Octavio stared at him some more before dismissing him, which was a relief. He would have to get that under control, the changes to his facial expressions. Robots didn’t have emotions, after all.

Taejoon stood outside the other’s door, watching the house staff bustle about. The mansion was already very clean, but they seemed to want to make it even cleaner for the house party. To Taejoon’s understanding, some of Kishou’s biggest partners and a few family members would be here—and his wife was coming back as well. Taejoon would be seeing her in person for the first time.

He was able to recognize Kishou’s current wife in a picture thanks to the database inside of him. He hadn’t disabled it yet because it was dead useful, though it was a little annoying to be constantly assaulted with information he didn’t care to know.

Hers was the most recent picture put up—she was a blonde-haired, brown-eyed woman, about twenty-eight, and named Adele. Taejoon wondered how Octavio felt with a stepmother not even a decade older than him, but it seemed young stepmoms were not something new to him; Kishou’s previous wife, his old secretary, was twenty-three in her picture. 

Taejoon wondered why there were no pictures of Octavio himself up in the house. He’d seen a few pictures with a corner clearly ripped out and suspected that they were Octavio’s work, but he didn't know the reason for it.

He wandered from room to room, purposely avoiding Irina lest she give him some menial task. Many of the pictures in this house were actually expensive paintings of either scenery or of Kishou, and most of the photographs were pictures of his current wife, though a few from several years ago were still hanging up. Mostly of Kishou's previous wives. Taejoon wondered how Adele felt about that.

He soon found himself outside of Kishou’s room, where his door stood ajar. Realizing he was no longer restricted from entering, he approached swiftly, scanning the area just to make sure nobody would see him doing something he wasn’t supposed to.

Kishou’s room was twice the size of Octavio’s, which was ridiculous, because Octavio’s room was already bigger than the entirety of Taejoon’s old apartment. He had a huge four-poster bed, an expensive fur rug, and minimal décor. The only personal touches were on Adele’s side of the room in the form of a picture of her family and a discarded makeup wipe. Everything in here was as blindingly white as the rest of the house (if you didn’t count Octavio’s room), but nothing seemed too suspicious or out of place.

Opening up draws and getting on his knees to peek under the bed, he found nothing interesting. He wasn’t sure what exactly he was looking for, but his curiosity about all the places he wasn’t allowed to enter persisted even after he had undone that certain programming, so he was snooping to satiate it.

Finding nothing, Taejoon gave up and left the room quietly, shutting the door behind him. He wanted to check Kishou’s study too, but he already felt like he’d risked enough right now doing this. Perhaps later tonight.

He walked into the dining room, where two staff members were setting the table, an awfully long thing that could probably sit around fifty people. He counted twenty-five set plates, half the table’s capacity, and yet it still looked so empty. Rich people were ridiculous.

Irina suddenly barreled into him, and had he been in his previous body, he would have been knocked over. But in this current one, his feet were firmly planted on the ground, and he looked down at her, unimpressed.

“Oh, thank god,” she said, not bothering to apologize because who was he to her other than a mindless droid? She flicked her red hair out of her face, rather harried. “Get Octavio dressed. Make _sure_ he wears these.”

She shoved a folded set of pristine white clothes into his arms before rushing to yell at some poor lady who was setting the forks down wrong. With a barely-restrained roll of his eyes, Taejoon made his way back to Octavio’s room, not even bothering to knock as he entered. Octavio barely looked up from his video game, rolling his eyes when he saw who it was.

“Get dressed,” Taejoon said, setting his clothes down on his bed.

“Make me,” Octavio responded mindlessly.

Taejoon made as if to grab at the other and he responded with a shrill “I was _joking!"_ , rolling out of the way and pausing his game. It was honestly hard to believe this man was almost twenty-one sometimes.

Taejoon unfolded the clothes Irina had given him and tried to hold back his look of distaste—white slacks, a gray waistcoat with white lining, a pressed white shirt...even the tie was white. What was even the point of it? What was this family’s obsession with the color white?

Taejoon half-turned to face Octavio but froze a little, staring at the other’s shirtless torso. White scars zig-zagged themselves right beneath his chest, rather fresh top-surgery scars, possibly within the past six months if he was guessing correctly. 

The reason for the all-female staff suddenly made a little more sense, assuming they had all been hired when Octavio was a child, and made Taejoon feel even more inhuman than he already did. He was clearly a male-coded robot in the eyes of the others (at least, he hoped he was), but wasn’t deemed human enough to matter in the grand scheme of it. It made him feel a little angry, a little more frustrated, and he clenched the other's shirt tightly in his fist.

“What?” Octavio snapped, breaking him away from his thoughts. He chose not to say anything, and Octavio snatched the shirt from his hands, pulling it on with little care. Underneath the numerous scars and bruises, he actually had a pretty nice body. He wasn’t quite built yet, his stomach too soft, but the lines of abdominal muscles were starting to peek through, and would surely become more pronounced the more he worked out. 

Taejoon missed his own body—he had never gotten to the level Octavio was at now, he had been completely soft, but it had still been _his_ body. Not this metal torso, built from scraps. Not his metal limbs, sleek and powerful and able to break bones cleanly. He enviously followed the line of Octavio’s throat with his eyes, up to his ear, where a piercing dangled, one of his longer ones. He seemed fonder of studs and small hoops, but this one hung by his jaw, resembling chains and feathers.

 _Tell him to take out his piercings,_ a voice inside of him prompted. He still got those despite doing his best to get rid of them, though he didn’t have to follow them. They were just annoying little suggestions, but sometimes they helped him stay on track, keeping up this masquerade of being a robot. He would be ignoring this particular prompt, however—he didn’t care if Octavio wore earrings. He envied the other’s body and wouldn’t tell him how it should look. He wished he had his own back.

“You’re being weird,” Octavio said, once again pulling Taejoon away from his thoughts. He had been staring without quite processing, and Octavio was now fully dressed except for the waistcoat. “You’re staring at me.”

“I’m not,” Taejoon lied. Octavio squinted, arms dropping to his sides. The waistcoat dropped to the floor, probably getting wrinkly.

“Is this some kind of robot uprising?” He asked in complete seriousness, and Taejoon bit back a laugh. “Are you going to turn rogue and kill me in my sleep?”

“You’re imagining things,” Taejoon said, doing his best to keep his expression stoic.

Octavio walked up to him, gaze piercing. He studied Taejoon’s face, crossing his arms over his chest and looking him up and down. Taejoon wondered how much closer they would have been in height had he been in his previous body, but for now he rather enjoyed being...what, six feet? He liked towering over the other—it would make it easier to intimidate him if it came to that.

“You’re talking back.” Octavio tilted his head to the side, still studying him. “You’re not so... _boring._ ”

Taejoon tensed a little—the other man’s observation skills were a little keener than he had thought they were. Perhaps Taejoon had been a little too carefree when it came to how he communicated with others—it had only been three days since he’d regained free will, and he’d already been figured out by Octavio.

Taejoon scanned the area. Nobody was around to hear an altercation, or Octavio’s screams. If he tried to tell the others that Taejoon was acting strange and putting him at risk of getting found out by the Syndicate and shut down as a result, he would have to find a way to subdue him.

If he did it carefully, he could break all of Octavio’s bones and tie him up in his closet, work quickly on his PC, and upload all of his programming onto a hard-drive. If he could make his way to Gaea before the Syndicate caught wind and shut him down remotely, and find Mystik...so long as she put the new hard-drive into him, he could come back alive. Hopefully with his consciousness still intact.

He would lose all access to the Syndicate’s database and there was always the chance that Taejoon Park would really, truly die if he was shut-down, but...

“Whatever,” Octavio suddenly said, and turned his back on him.

Taejoon stared. Was that it? He wasn’t going to say anything else about it?

“You should finish getting dressed,” he decided to say, trying to keep up the pretense that everything was _normal._ He would have normally said that in this sort of situation, wouldn’t he?

Octavio snorted, still not looking at him. “Make me.”

There went that half-command, again. Taejoon moved slowly, picking the waistcoat up from the ground and turning the other man around so he was facing him.

Taejoon slid the waistcoat over Octavio's shoulders and buttoned it up for him when he made no move to do so himself. He was sure this was some sort of test, but he didn’t know the reasoning behind it, or how to pass. He finished the last button and smoothed out some of the wrinkles. It looked good, hugging his waist, and even if it was just a plain gray, it was a splash of color against this all-white outfit.

He adjusted the other’s collar because he was prompted to, and figured that going along with his prompts would alleviate the other’s suspicions, even if just by a little. He went to fix his tie, but his wrist was grabbed harshly, and he met the blazing eyes of Octavio, silent.

“Dismissed,” he said. A clear order.

Taejoon left quickly, and about halfway down the hall experienced a shudder of electricity; a delayed response to his thoughts about hurting Octavio earlier. He was getting better at suppressing it, but it did suck that he still had some sort of programming in him that made him dislike the thought of hurting the other. If it came to it, he wasn’t sure if he would be able to go through with it without suffering from more pain.

Octavio was going to be a problem, though. That was for sure.

The evening progressed mostly as planned. Taejoon sat by on duty, laser-focused on Octavio’s intake of food—dinner tonight had a side of scallops, which Octavio’s plate was conspicuously absent of due to his shellfish allergy.

He did try sneaking some off the plate of some distant relative, but Taejoon stepped forward quickly and smacked his hand out of the way. He didn’t want to rush to get an EpiPen from the kitchen, though he did pity the other somewhat—if Taejoon had been allergic to shrimp, he probably would have tried eating some anyway.

Octavio seemed to like making a nuisance of himself in as many minor ways as possible, drumming his silverware against his plate, sitting so far back in his chair that he was able to swing his legs easily and purposely kick the table, making everything jostle a little. He was clearly trying to be sent away, but his father’s attention was preoccupied by Adele, and—

Taejoon squinted, the database inside him whirring to life. He recognized the emblems on their jackets; two representatives from Hammond Robotics...the people who had made him this way.

Interesting. He hadn’t realized some of their people would be here tonight.

He then watched Octavio accidentally drip some sort of orange sauce onto his clean white pants. He tried cleaning it up, but only made the stain worse. Idiot.

Dinner finished, and everyone got up to mingle, chattering about topics that held no interest to Taejoon. Investments and stocks and whatever. None of that mattered to him, but getting close to the HR people did.

Unfortunately, Taejoon could not get too close to them unless Octavio did, and he was currently skulking around, arms crossed and sticking close to the walls. His pissy attitude from earlier in the day seemed to have carried over, perhaps because he was being forced to attend a business dinner—the most boring kind of dinner. 

Taejoon stood beside him, though his mind was starting to wander elsewhere. It really was insufferable, listening to all of these rich investors talk.

“If I asked you to knock me out, would you do it?” Octavio asked, bored. He had hidden the orange stain on his pants by tying his white tie around his thigh. It was both stupid and ingenious at the same time.

“No,” Taejoon said. It was true—at least, it was what he was prompted to say. He could probably punch him if he really tried. “I can’t hurt you.”

“Liaaar. You hurt me earlier!”

“That was an accident.”

“Sure it was,” Octavio said, raising his hand up to poke at his own face. 

“If it hurts so much, I can put a Band-Aid on for you,” Taejoon said, doing his best to sound condescending without _really_ sounding condescending.

Their conversation was interrupted by Adele, who grabbed Octavio’s upper arm with her manicured hand with no regard to Taejoon before steering him towards his father, who was talking to the Hammond Robotics representatives. Taejoon followed, taking in the appearance of the others—though he knew mostly everyone else in the house, information that had been programmed into him, he didn’t know the two before him. An older man with a hunched back and gray hair, and a younger man about Taejoon’s age, though much larger. He towered over everyone else in the room, muscular and with a synthetic arm.

“This is my son,” Kishou introduced. He gave him a slightly disdainful once-over, eyes lingering on the white tie on his thigh.

“Hola,” Octavio said. He pointed at one of the men. “I know you.”

“‘Course you do!” The muscular man boasted. Taejoon instantly disliked him. “I’m not a two-time Hyperfighting Federation champ for nothin’!”

“We built James’s arm,” the older man said, and James stuck it out to show the others. Adele let out a theatrical little ‘oooh’ that made Taejoon want to roll his eyes. “Which, of course, we couldn’t have done without your investments.”

“You flatter me.”

“It’s true,” the older man laughed, and Taejoon watched Octavio grab James’s hand roughly before he could withdraw it. “Your boy got an interest in robotics?”

Octavio had been studying the joints of the synthetic fingers, but at those words looked up at the older man, his face scrunched up.

“I’m a _man_. Not a boy," he said. His eyes then flickered to his father. “I’m _twenty-one._ ”

A lie, Taejoon thought to himself. He was only twenty, though twenty-one did sound marginally better. Twenty was hardly older than being a teenager—twenty-one would drive his point further. Probably. Taejoon didn’t know how his mind worked.

“Apologies,” the older man said with ease. Octavio dropped James’s hand, before looking up at his face, half a smirk on his lips.

“I want you to punch me,” he said earnestly.

Kishou stepped in front of Octavio then, bowing his head at James and the other man’s questioning faces.

“Apologies for him, he doesn’t mean to be so inappropriate—”

“Yes I do,” Octavio said loudly over his father.

Adele grabbed Taejoon by his arm, hissing into his ear, “ _Take him to his room_ ”, before releasing him. Taejoon wasn’t too torn up about getting away from them for now—James didn’t seem to be an employee, merely sponsored by HR, but he wasn’t sure about the other man’s status. He stepped forward to guide Octavio away, but froze up when the man suddenly referred to him with a gesture.

“Is it working as intended, Kishou?”

“Of course, Hans,” Kishou replied, waving a flippant hand. “Does everything it’s told.”

“No hiccups?”

"If there are, I'm sure Adele will let you know."

Taejoon’s eyes narrowed, allowing Octavio to resist against him briefly. _‘No hiccups’?_ Did the old man mean that in a general way, or was he aware of the true nature of him?...Maybe it was worth digging into Hans after all.

Taejoon dragged Octavio away, but the other let up as soon as they were out of sight, enough that he trusted him enough to not run off, so he let go of his arm.

“Thank fucking god,” Octavio groaned, pulling the tie off of his leg and tossing it carelessly down the hall. “It's so _suffocating_ being around them, they're all so stuffy.Ew.”

Taejoon hummed in agreement, though he bit his tongue quickly, hoping the other hadn’t heard. He had to be overly cautious of how he acted around Octavio now, but it seemed he hadn’t noticed, too busy shit-talking the party to have taken note. Taejoon made sure Octavio was inside his bedroom before he was dismissed, and he slipped down the hallway, taking a different staircase that would lead him out of sight of the partygoers.

It wasn’t likely that Hans would have a computer in his car, much less a computer with important information on it, but Taejoon wasn’t going to let such an opportunity get away from him. If there was a chance that he could disable something on the Syndicate’s end that could prevent them from being able to meddle with him further, such as shutting him down or implementing updates that he would have to undo all over again, he wouldn’t let it slip through his fingers, no matter how small.

He disabled the garage alarm, making his way out to the front of the house where all of the guests' cars were parked. Delilah had been acting as a valet for tonight, though he could see her by the gates on a smoke break, easily distinguishable in the distance with her tight curls in a short bob and her chauffeur's hat.

He was glad he wore all-black since it was night time, though he did have to crouch a little just to make sure she couldn’t see him. Creeping his way between the rows of cars, he eyed each license plate—another perk of his databases, knowing which vehicle belonged to who at the party. Most of them, anyway—he was actually looking for the one license plate _he wouldn’t_ recognize, as Hans and James were the only people he didn’t know, so reasonably he didn’t know their car either.

Taejoon paused in front of a sleek black car, staring at the license plate. He didn’t know it, and it was the only one he didn’t recognize, so Hans and James had probably come in the same car then. He pulled lightly on the car handle, hoping Delilah had been careless enough to leave it unlocked, but she hadn’t. With a sigh, he straightened up. If he could go inside and find the right car key he could unlock it, or at least get a hanger to shimmy the door open, but he didn’t want to risk Delilah coming back and catching him.

He did have a trick up his sleeve, though—he was able to work the trunk open by banging on certain spots, a trick Mystik had taught he and Mila years ago. Crouching and holding the trunk low so it wouldn’t appear immediately suspicious if Delilah glanced over, he looked at the contents of the trunk, seeing a silver briefcase amongst discarded fast food wrappers and grocery bags. You would think rich people would clean their cars out more.

He reached out for the briefcase, but paused. Taejoon didn’t know if it had an alarm that could be triggered if he tried forcing it open, and he didn’t want to risk it if there were only useless things like paperwork inside. But at the same time, on the off-chance that there was something he could _use_...

“I was right,” a voice said, and he jumped so badly he accidentally slammed the trunk shut. Jerking his head around, eyes wide, he saw Octavio standing several feet away from him, having changed out of his dinner clothes into something much more carefree. A black crop-top and skinny jeans. “This _is_ your robot uprising.”

 _Fuck._ He hadn't been careful enough when he _should have_. Octavio had been shoved into his room all too easily—he should have known the other had planned to sneak out this entire time.

Taejoon wondered if he could subdue Octavio without Delilah hearing, or if he would need to take them both out. If he managed to restrain Octavio without Delilah noticing, what would he do with him? Kill him? If he was dead he couldn’t tell the others his servant droid had suddenly started acting out, but if he went missing and so did Taejoon, the Syndicate could suspect that something was off and shut him down, and he hadn’t had the chance to make a back-up hard-drive yet.

But it went both ways—if he left Octavio alive, he’d tell the others, and if he killed him they’d figure it out. How long would it take for them to figure it out, though? If he could buy some time, if he hid his body well enough...

(But Taejoon didn't want to hurt him. Even after disabling it all, he didn't want to. Did that make him a weak person?)

Octavio looked over at Delilah, and Taejoon prepared to pounce lest he start screaming for her, but instead all he said was,

“Could you help me sneak past her?”

Taejoon froze, confused.

“I'm going out to a club. Wanna come with?”

There was no use in Taejoon pretending anymore. “ _What?_ ”

“Today’s my birthday,” Octavio said, turning to look at Taejoon again. He cocked his head to the side, and the moonlight glinted off of his piercings. “Not that anybody cared.”

Oh. The comment from earlier made more sense, now.

Taejoon looked over at the house, its grand windows showing the party going on inside. He didn’t want to go to a club, but if he went with Octavio and managed to convince him to not tell his father, then...everything could work out. He would still have time to create that back-up hard-drive and escape one day. Nobody would know any better.

But did he really want to tell the other the truth? Trust his life in his hands? Or would he have to threaten him into silence? Taejoon was bigger than him—it wouldn't be hard to overpower him. But his own conflicting emotions, what was and wasn't programming, would get in the way.

This was frustrating.

“If we go around the house, we can climb the wall and sneak out there,” Taejoon finally sighed. He'd tell the other man the truth. He didn't think he had any other choice.

Octavio grinned, and pushed past him with a laugh, suddenly bright and energetic. It was almost astounding how fast his mood could flip.

“I knew you’d come in handy. C’mon! Let’s go party.”

Taejoon followed after him reluctantly, pulling him into shadowy corners occasionally when a stray partygoer left the house for a quick smoke. They reached the back wall where Taejoon put his hands on the other's waist and lifted him carefully on top of it. He then scaled it himself easily, dropping to the ground beside Octavio, who was giving him another look.

"What?" Taejoon asked, uncomfortable, but it felt nice to not have to be overly cautious of his words anymore. He could fucking _speak._ Like a _human._

"You treat me so carefully." Octavio nudged him with his elbow. "Even though I know for _sure_ now you cut me on _purpose._ "

"Shut up," Taejoon said, and it felt good. It felt even better when Octavio laughed. He was a little more confident now that he could somehow convince him to keep this whole thing a secret.

"C'mon, man," Octavio said, and lead him onto the main road. "...Do you have a name? Like, do robots even have names?"

Taejoon stuck his hands in his pockets, pondering how he should answer that question. With his project name? Crypto? It felt impersonal, but he didn't know yet just how _much_ he was going to tell Octavio about his condition, about who he really was.

But at the same time, part of him longed to be treated like a person again. To have his name said, his feelings accounted for, to touch someone gently because he wanted to touch them and not because he was made to. To have a real conversation. To do things _he_ wanted to do.

He hadn't had his name said by another person in so long. It almost felt like he didn't have one anymore.

So once they were well out of earshot of the house, he said quietly, "Taejoon. My name is Taejoon."

Octavio's grin was visible even in the darkness of the unlit street. "Taejoon? Am I pronouncing that right? _Tae-_ joon."

"Yeah. You're saying it right."

"Taejooooon..." Octavio kept repeating it. "Weird name."

"It's Korean."

"I know. It's just a weird name for a robot to have."

He bit back his words. He'd tell the other more later, when they weren't so close to the house, to HR people, but...it felt really, really nice to have his name said. To hear it spoken. 

He almost felt human again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKER IF U DIDNT THINK I WAS GONNA MAKE OCTANE TRANS
> 
> it doesn't get more homoerotic than helping someone get dressed i think
> 
> hellooooo......sorry for the wait ;w; i got sick and on top of being sick and depressed and having executive dysfunction its rly hard for me to get up and write nowadays. i miss being outside lol but i am instead trapped inside a hostile household 24/7
> 
> dont be afraid to drop a review ! they rly keep me going


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws for this chapter:
> 
> drinking. not vague mentions of drinking, it is very prominent in this chapter, so im sorry if that bothers anyone!  
> a slight implication to alcohol abuse and drug usage  
> and one(1) mention of sex toys LMAO
> 
> also of ur gonna comment transphobic stuff like last chapter fuck off xoxo

They took the train, which Octavio seemed to delight at. He apparently didn’t get to ride it very often, what with having his own private driver and all, and it showed: he talked way too loudly for such a public place and had little regard for others on board. Thankfully though, it was right before eleven at night, and the trains weren’t very crowded, though a few tired workers on their way home kept shooting the two of them dirty looks.

“Do you not know the concept of an _‘inside voice’_?” Taejoon asked from his seat, glaring at the man across from him.

“Nope,” Octavio said. He had inexplicably switched to English once they got onto the train, a jarring switch from their previous conversation in Spanish. It took Taejoon a little bit to figure out how to speak in English too, but he was starting to think he was getting the handle on switching languages. He hadn’t spoken Korean out loud yet, but wanted to try.

Octavio made him figure out which stop they needed to get off at, which, of course he hadn’t planned that far ahead. They had about four more stops to go before they would be near the club, and anticipation was crawling beneath Taejoon’s skin, leg jittering impatiently.

He wanted to tell the other everything now, but they were in too much of a public space to do so. The Syndicate had eyes everywhere—he’d probably have to tell him a fragment of the truth while they were out in public so he wouldn’t tell the others as soon as they got home, and then finish telling him the rest in the privacy of his own room.

Taejoon crossed one leg over the other politely and tried nudging the other’s legs shut, but he continued sitting with them spread wide, inconveniencing anyone who needed to walk by. At this point, he couldn’t tell if Octavio just had no idea how to act in public or did this all deliberately to be as annoying as possible. Maybe a mixture of both, considering his actions earlier.

When they got off he swore he almost heard a collective sigh of relief at the fact that they were leaving. With a roll of his eyes, he offered his arm to Octavio to help him up the stairs, as it was raining and the steps were slick and wet. Octavio just gave him a funny look.

“What?” Taejoon asked. He then realized what exactly he was doing and let his arm drop down by his side, looking pointedly away. Right. He didn’t have to do that anymore.

The city was bustling despite the late hour and the rain. People shoved past them and Taejoon regretted not checking the weather forecast to see if they would need an umbrella. There was _some_ good news, however—he was apparently waterproof.

He held his jacket over Octavio because he didn’t fancy the thought of him getting sick and being annoying about it at home, what with him literally wearing a crop-top. Cool drops of rain ran down his face, a nice sensation compared to the relative numbness of the rest of this new body, and he almost wanted to stand there in the downpour just to marvel at it.

They walked on the crowded sidewalk until Octavio got frustrated by the slowness and hopped onto the street instead, which was flooded with water rushing into the gutters. Taejoon grit his teeth and followed, glad he couldn’t feel the water no doubt seeping into his shoes. Cars honked at them, but they were going too slow to matter anyway, and they weren’t in danger of being hit—the city had so many flashing billboards, neon signs, and jumbo screens that its brightness mimicked daytime even at this late hour.

“We couldn’t have picked something drier?” Taejoon grumbled.

Octavio gave him a look. “Why? You gonna die? Genuine question.”

“I don’t think so. But it’s wet.”

“Rain isn’t going to hurt anybody,” Octavio said, though he sputtered indignantly when Taejoon flipped his jacket over his shoulder so it was no longer shielding Octavio from the heavy onslaught of water.

The club they came outside of didn’t have that long of a line, which Taejoon was thankful for in this weather, but they didn’t even go through it—Octavio instead marched right up to the bouncer and shoved a wad of cash into the palm of his hand. The bouncer gave him a look, eyebrow raised, before he asked, “I.D?”

“I have more money,” Octavio said, smirking.

 _Brat,_ Taejoon thought to himself.

“You can pay to cut in front of everyone else, but I ain’t losing my job if you’re underage.”

With a roll of his eyes, Octavio procured his wallet and shoved it into the bouncer’s face. The bouncer squinted at it before nodding.

“Happy birthday,” he said. Octavio’s face lit up.

“Gracias!” He said cheerfully, and the bouncer unhooked the rope of the stanchion to allow him through. Taejoon moved to follow, but the bouncer stopped him.

“Your friend?” He asked, jerking his head towards Taejoon. 

Octavio reached over and knocked his fist against Taejoon’s exposed chest, a loud metal _clunk_ clearly sounding.

“Robot.”

The bouncer let him through.

Taejoon had never been into a club before this—he’d been what Mila had called ‘boring’, and his hometown back on Gaea didn’t have much of a nightlife anyway. This club was bustling and busy like the streets outside, but a lot drier, and a lot more...fun. Nobody in here seemed to be a tired worker on their way home after a long day at a thankless job—they all looked to be young, pretty, and rich.

It was very dark, but strobe lights and colored spotlights shined down on the mass of writhing, dancing bodies in the pit, dozens of arms raised and drinks sloshing everywhere on occasion. The dancing crowd was loud and frenzied, almost moving as one horrifying monster rather than fifty or so individuals.

Sleek, shiny black steps descended onto the dancefloor, and at the top of them was an even sleeker bar, where at least three bartenders tended to four times that many patrons. The collection of alcohol on the shelves behind them seemed to cost a fortune, and Taejoon saw one bartender slide a diamond-encrusted shot glass into the awaiting hand of a woman who looked like a runway model.

Neon pinks and greens and purples danced in front of Taejoon’s eyes as Octavio led him to the bar, a fog machine suddenly whirring to life as they passed by in time with the synthy, bass-heavy music pumping loudly over the club speakers. It was so hot in here that Taejoon felt like his soaking-wet clothes were drying already.

They sat at the bar, side-by-side in tall barstools while Taejoon glanced around, taking it all in. The menu was expensive and everyone in here seemed to be from money; so many designer dresses, expensive jewelry, top-of-the-line phones and shoes that he wouldn’t have been able to afford unless he saved up all of his paychecks for at least five years.

He felt extremely out of place, and hoped that they wouldn't stay here long.

Octavio caught his attention by pointing at a drink on the menu that was priced at three thousand dollars. “What the fuck.”

 _What the fuck,_ indeed. Taejoon squinted at its name—Sapphire Martini—and instantly knew what was in it. Gin, blue curacao, and sometimes served with an actual sapphire inside. He supposed the sapphire warranted the high price, but why the hell would anybody blow that much money on a drink? 

“I want one,” Octavio said.

...Whatever. It was his money.

The bartender served him, giving the two of them an easy, practiced smile. She was very pretty, and her two male coworkers were equally as handsome. Taejoon wondered if it was a requirement that everyone who entered the club had to be beautiful.

He smiled back a little just so she would stop smiling at him, and she laughed lightly, which made him smile more genuinely. He hadn’t had anybody smile at him like that in a long time, and even if it was superficial, merely for customer service, it made him feel slightly more relaxed even in such a lavish environment.

Octavio’s ice-blue drink seemed to glow neon in the club lighting. He ran his tongue over the white sugar on the rim, before tilting his glass this way and that to get a better look at the cherry on the bottom. Taejoon watched him tilt it to his lips and take a sip, face scrunching up a little at the taste.

“Is it good?” He asked, mildly curious. His leg was jittering nervously against the barstool, a human behavior he’d been incapable of merely a week ago.

“I dunno yet,” Octavio said. He spun around in his chair, watching the blue liquid slosh, almost spilling over the rim. “Want some?”

Taejoon stared at the other, unsure if he had heard him correctly over the club’s loud music Octavio stared back, hazel eyes wide. He didn’t seem to be joking, but Taejoon wasn’t sure what he had to gain from it.

“Unless you can’t drink?”

Could he?

He didn’t know.

He guessed now was the time to try.

Reaching for the glass, he took it gingerly, still staring at Octavio. He wasn’t sure what his ulterior motive was, if he had one or not, but strange offer aside, he had been curious if he could eat things or not. He could smell, so he hoped he could taste, but that had yet to be tested. Peering down in the glass, he thought he saw a dark blue sapphire lodged beneath the maraschino cherry. Rich people really were something else.

Octavio clicked his tongue impatiently, and Taejoon rolled his eyes, turning the glass around so he would drink from the side Octavio hadn’t licked the sugar from. He closed his eyes and took a sip, preparing for the dry taste of gin, or worse, nothing at all.

 _Citrus._ It tasted a lot like citrus.

Lowering the glass, Taejoon stared at his reflection in the bright blue liquid, the citrusy taste flooding his senses all at once, overwhelming him, as it was the first thing he had consumed in...months. A year. So citrusy it reminded him of he and Mila drinking watery lemonade as kids, something they had made themselves by stealing flavor packets from the convenience store and trying to sell glasses on the street for a dollar each.

Octavio snatched the drink from him, laughing, but with a tinge of something he couldn't discern. “Ew, don’t cry into it.”

With a jolt Taejoon realized he had indeed been crying. Raising a finger up to his cheeks, he swiped it under and looked at his metal fingertip, seeing it glossy and wet from his tears. He hadn’t even been aware that he could do that. He didn't even know why he was crying.

Octavio watched him wipe his eyes with his already damp sleeve before he whirled around in his chair. He then balanced his elbows on top of the bar, sipping from his drink and fixing Taejoon with a look. Despite his relaxed posture, his eyes were rather calculating. “So... _what_ are you?”

Taejoon didn’t need to scan the area to know that there were surveillance cameras everywhere, zooming in on the face of every person in the club who looked too affluent or too important. 

He couldn’t go into too much detail, not _here_ , but he did say, “I’m human" just to get it off his chest.

Octavio sipped from his drink some more, but he didn’t say anything. Just kept staring at him with those calculating eyes, colder and more serious than Taejoon had ever seen him.

“I promise, I am," Taejoon continued, feeling the need to somewhat explain himself. "I can’t tell you everything now, but I’m not...whatever I’m supposed to be. Whatever you think I am."

The blue drink was close to its end, the sapphire sparkling brightly in the lighting.

“Please don’t tell anyone else.” He spoke with his lips almost closed so nobody could make out what he was saying, hoping Octavio heard him over the EDM blaring overhead, so loud that the bottles on the shelves behind the bartenders seemed to vibrate, but the other man didn't even acknowledge him. In fact, his attention had turned away in the middle of Taejoon speaking, more focused on his drink.

Octavio fished the cherry out from the bottom, popping it into his mouth but keeping the stem in his hand as he chewed. Taejoon watched him dump the gemstone in his glass out onto the palm of his hand with disinterest. He then held it up to his eye, tilting his head up so it caught the light.

“Wow,” he said around his cherry. “That’s real.”

Taejoon’s fingers tapped against the bar impatiently, waiting for him to respond, but nothing happened. He just stuck the cherry stem in his mouth.

“Well?” He asked, impatient, and Octavio smiled at him, silent. “You don’t have anything to say? No more ‘robot uprising’ crap?”

Octavio still didn’t say anything, and anger crept up Taejoon’s throat. He felt unsafe and on edge once again, out of place in this expensive club, amongst living, breathing people who had no idea what he was going through. No idea what the people who ran this city, this _solar system,_ were capable of. He envied those who took their humanity for granted, their naivety and breathing lungs and warm bodies that were all _theirs._

He envied _Octavio,_ sitting next to him and enjoying his birthday, where he could get drunk and forget everything that pained him until he woke up the next day. The fact that he could _sleep,_ could close his eyes and turn it all off for a few hours—Taejoon envied that the most. He wanted to sleep _now._ He wanted it to all be a bad dream.

But it was most certainly, most unfortunately, real.

“Well?” He repeated, fingers drumming even faster. Nervous.

Octavio simply smiled at him again, non-serious and carefree and _pretty._

Hot anger flashed through Taejoon and he lashed out, grabbing the collar of the other’s crop-top and pulling him close with violent strength he wasn’t aware he’d had. The barstool scraped across the ground as he glared into Octavio’s eyes, still scrunched up at the corners with his smile, and one of the bartenders reached over to swipe Octavio’s empty glass, saving it from being broken should a fight ensue.

Taejoon stared at Octavio, hoping that his eyes were blazing, hoping that the other felt how hard his fingers were curling, clenching the thin material of his shirt harshly. He could feel Octavio’s breath against his skin this close, and it only served to make him angrier.

The other man then stuck his tongue out, revealing the cherry stem tied into a knot at the tip. He raised his hand to remove it, placing it onto the bar while the woman who served them earlier swept it away with her cleaning cloth. Octavio turned back to look at him and said,

“You’re cute when you’re angry.”

Taejoon released the front of Octavio’s shirt, but the other man didn’t sit back down. He stretched his arms above his head, like he’d been sitting down forever, when they’d only been here for about fifteen minutes at most.

“I want to dance,” he said, and without further ado, descended down the shiny black steps onto the dance floor, where the writhing crowd welcomed him with open arms. Taejoon watched him blankly, half wanting to go with him to make sure he was alright, and half wanting to stay well away from the other.

The night progressed quickly as he sat at the bar, staring off into the distance and trying to calm his frazzled nerves. If he wanted, he could leave the club right now, break into a PC café and create a hard-drive, but that would leave Octavio to tell others what he had just told him—his servant droid was human, actually, and had its own free will.

His fists clenched on top of the bar, watching Octavio dance in the crowd, who should be hard to see because of the strobe lights, but it was like Taejoon could focus on him at any time he wanted to without difficulty. Even after all this, his anger and his hacking and his disobedience of his programming, something inside of him _still_ prioritized Octavio above everything else. 

He hated it.

Octavio danced for half an hour before returning to the bar to do Jolly Rancher shots with another guy about his age, tall and rugged-looking but clearly interesting enough to Octavio that he was laughing with him. The guy’s fingers danced across Octavio’s waist, but he didn’t do anything other than that, and they returned to the dance floor when they finished taking their shots without any further lingering.

Taejoon watched them, keeping an eye on the stranger, who left soon thereafter because his friends were going out. Octavio didn't seem to mind and danced without care, a bright grin on his face like the one he’d had when he’d took Taejoon to that dirt track several days ago. He moved rhythmically, a natural dancer, and Taejoon turned away from the sight of him, jaw clenching.

He looked at the bartender—not the same one who had served Octavio’s martini, she had gone on break—and ordered a bottle of soju, asking him to put it on Octavio’s tab.

Taejoon tuned out the music as he drank, wondering if he could get buzzed at the very least. Wondering if he was human enough to do so. Wondering if Octavio believed him at all. Wondering if he was going to tell his father and have Taejoon shut down.

His anger at the other faded away as one in the morning came and went, replaced by a similar numbness present in the rest of his body. He didn’t know if it was because he had truly stopped being mad at him, or if it was that programming that was still present, running under his veins, keeping him from hating him.

Did Taejoon even care about it all at this point? 

Even if Octavio told someone, what did it matter? Mila was dead. He couldn’t possibly make his way back to his home planet without someone noticing him and shutting him off for good. What was there to do here? Bodyguard Octavio, put the other’s life and needs above his own even now, after he had undone so much of his programming? This diminished existence...was it truly worth all the pain?

Maybe Taejoon would have it easier if he undid all his hacking and continued his life as a mindless servant. Maybe he would have it easier if he openly rebelled and was killed, for _real_ this time, by Hammond Robotics and their off-switch. Maybe he would have it easier if he just ceased to exist.

He finished his soju, and the bartender took the empty bottle away. Octavio clambered into the seat next to him, sweaty as he ordered a Tequila Sunrise. He waited for the drink impatiently, somewhat breathless as he spun in his chair, so full of energy still. Taejoon watched him down half his drink in one go when he finally got it, having half a mind to tell him to slow down lest he get alcohol poisoning.

“You know I’ve never drank before?” Octavio giggled to him, and Taejoon watched him sweep his hair out of his eyes, which were dancing beneath the colored spotlights. “Never. Never ever ever. We don’t keep alcohol in the house.”

Taejoon wondered if he was drunk, or starting to get so.

“Dad—dad’s real bad with alcohol. I never thought I’d drink until now.” Octavio raised the cocktail he'd ordered, colorful, vibrant orange and red. “It’s good, though. It’s fun.”

Taejoon closed his eyes as Octavio drank beside him, letting the bass of the club music pound in his ears. He was tired, suddenly. Exhausted. He wanted to go home. His _real_ home. Get on the train like those worn-out workers and just...leave.

He felt hands smooth down the front of his suit jacket, which had dried in the heat of the club. He peeled his eyes open, seeing Octavio standing way too close to him, smiling wide as he tugged at Taejoon's lapels.

“Dance with me,” he said. 

Some part of Taejoon wanted to listen to that command. Stand up, take the other’s hand, let him lead him to the dance floor. Press close to him in the crowd, which was starting to thin marginally, and let the music carry him through the movements. Simply obeying his programming couldn’t cause him any harm—it was the easiest thing to do, mindless and inconsequential. He needed to be mindless and inconsequential right now. Needed that feeling of doing _nothing._

But he pried Octavio’s hands off of him and got to his feet instead, meeting the other’s eyes, which were really pretty up close. _Octavio_ was pretty, he could admit that—he fit in here, with his money-filled pockets and careless attitude and pretty smile. Taejoon didn't.

“Let’s go home,” Taejoon said, because he couldn't take it anymore, and Octavio scoffed, but allowed himself to be half-dragged out of the club anyway.

He really was drunk—swaying on his feet, trying to walk on his own but stumbling every couple of steps. Not overwhelmingly so; his words were perfectly clear and he was able to get past the turnstile in the train station without issue, but he leaned against Taejoon for support as they boarded the train, which thankfully ran all night.

Octavio sat right next to him on the dirty plastic seats, humming and unable to sit still. He annoyed strangers who sat near him, but their car cleared out with each stop, until it was just the two of them and a homeless man asleep on a bench. 

Octavio turned to look at him as their stop got nearer, his lips curled up at the corners in a smug smile. Taejoon stared back, and it was only when the sleeping man let out a grunt did he ask,

“What?”

“I believe you,” Octavio said, hand shooting out to grip the pole right next to him when the train lurched unexpectedly. “About being human.”

Taejoon raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms over his chest. That was...a sudden relief to his numb self. “...Yeah?”

“That’s got to be a h-hell of a story, compadre.” The other man yawned halfway through his sentence. “‘nd I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”

"How can you be sure to trust me?"

"You haven't killed me yet." Octavio giggled again. "God, I _knew_ you were too hot to be a robot."

Taejoon watched him, studying his face carefully. He could tell the other was tired and drunk, but being honest. He really did believe that Taejoon was human despite his appearance and his previous actions, his obedience to everything commanded of him.

A bubble of emotion was building up in his throat, a sudden shift from his previous numbness the soju had given him, replaced by the drunk feeling of finally being acknowledged as a human being. His name had been said, he’d been offered a drink like he could actually consume things, and he _did_ drink, and told Octavio the truth—and he believed him.

He didn’t know if this would change anything at all; if Octavio would merely go back to treating him like a servant, if his feelings would still be valued less than others’, if he would simply go back to being an _it._ But it felt overwhelming to him all at once and he tilted his head to the side, trying to fight the fact that his eyes were burning.

“Why do you keep crying?” Octavio complained beside him, before resting his head on Taejoon’s shoulder, eyes closing. “Dumbass.”

When they got to their stop, Octavio was fast asleep. It was easy to carry him even though he was entirely dead weight, Taejoon walking the mile or so to the other’s house with him in his arms. He didn’t entirely mind—he needed the peace and quiet.

He could finish telling him everything tomorrow, when he was awake and sober. Maybe Octavio could help him somehow—even if it was a near-hopeless dream, maybe Taejoon could still make his way back home and find Mystik. Maybe he could become his own person again.

They arrived at the gate to the Silva estate, locked tight. Taejoon disabled the security camera outside of it and fished in Octavio’s back pocket for the key, unlocking it and pushing it open with his shoulder, where it swung in a wide arc and revealed the grand driveway that led up to the even grander house.

He scanned the area, but everyone was where they should be, so there was no need to take any back passages. He carried Octavio up to his room as quietly as possible, entering the other’s room and closing the door behind him carefully. Laying the sleeping man down on his bed, he then drew the curtains shut so the sunlight wouldn’t bother him too much in the morning.

He then leaned over the other, carefully removing his earrings so they wouldn't irritate his skin. That had happened to Mila before, and it hadn't been pleasant, so he set Octavio's earrings on the table by his bed before adjusting the blanket so it was properly covering his body. He didn't want him to get sick after all that rain and alcohol, after all.

Realizing he had several hours before everyone woke up, Taejoon dug around for a little bit in the other’s things to see if he had any unused hard-drives lying around, but he found nothing. A lot of useless junk, and concerningly, a syringe, but nothing of value to him.

His schoolwork was largely untouched, medical and marketing books gathering dust in the corner of his desk. He was surprised to find that Octavio wrote in cursive—messy cursive, but cursive nonetheless, smudged a little because of his left-handedness. He supposed it made sense—it was a quick way to write for someone as impatient as him.

He discovered an unopened bodycam beneath the other’s bed, wondering what its purpose was before he shoved it back underneath. Octavio snorted above him in his sleep, flipping over onto his side, and Taejoon froze.

Not for the same reasons he would have frozen up before—there was no reason to fear being caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing in case he gave away the fact that he wasn’t what he seemed. Now, he was afraid to be caught because he was just plain snooping. Like he had with Mila years ago, and like she had with him.

Taejoon opened Octavio’s bedside draw and snubbed his nose at the number of candy wrappers inside. Gross. The draw beneath that was ten times worse—condoms, lube and—

Ew, ew, ew he did _not_ care to look at that, who the _fuck_ was _this_ careless with the placement of these types of things. And it was such a violent shade of green, too. What the fuck.

Stumbling away from it out of embarrassment, Taejoon decided that that was enough snooping for now. He wouldn’t have stayed in the other’s room under normal circumstances, but these were...special. He wanted to talk to him tomorrow before he faced the rest of the house, while the whole situation was still fresh in their minds. The sooner this conversation happened, the better.

He snorted a little when he saw the way Octavio was sleeping; curled up into a tight ball, one arm wrapped around his legs and the other lying haphazardly across his face. He then once again envied the fact that Octavio could sleep, and sat himself in a corner, waiting.

The hours stretched on. It was boring, sitting here all night, but as the sun began to rise Taejoon left Octavio’s room to go down to the kitchens. He poured a glass of water and made some toast, glaring at the expensive butter that would have certainly cost him an arm back home on Gaea. He carried the plate carefully back up the stairs, the rest of the house beginning to wake up around him.

Octavio woke up about an hour after that. Taejoon had found some aspirin and placed it on the edge of his plate, staring at the wall with his knees drawn to his chest, though his head jerked in the direction of the man’s bed when he heard him groan.

“I’m never drinking ever again,” he mumbled, burying his face into his pillow.

“Good,” Taejoon said, getting to his feet and brushing the dust off his pants. “It was annoying carrying you home.”

A lie, but he didn’t want to do it again.

“You carried me?” Octavio asked, pushing himself up and reaching for the glass of water. He drank it quickly despite how sluggish his movements were, before he set it back down and fell limply onto his pillow once again.

“Eat,” Taejoon said, ignoring him. “It’ll make you feel better.”

“You been drunk before?” Octavio asked.

“I’m human.”

“Yeah, I _know,_ but do you drink?”

So he hadn’t forgotten. Good.

“I used to,” he answered honestly, and watched Octavio sit back up to take his aspirin. “But that’s not important right now. We have to talk.”

Octavio rolled his eyes, finishing the last of his water before reaching for a piece of toast, its butter long melted onto the fluffy white surface and staining it yellow. He sat up in his bed properly before going still, peering over his bed with his toast still in hand.

"Dude," Octavio said groggily. " _Why_ were you looking at my di-"

Taejoon kicked the draw shut, feeling his face heat up, which was a very human reaction he hadn't been aware he was capable of. Octavio was also laughing at him, which just made him feel more embarrassed. "Let's. Talk."

Octavio was still laughing at the look on his face, but he said, “Alright. Let’s talk, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im several years below drinking/adult age man i dont know how alcohol works
> 
> anysays i am hashtag EXHAUSTED and hashtag SICK again
> 
> dont be afraid to drop a review ! i got a lot last chapter and it rly quite motivated me to keep this up and update quickly because quarantine is kicking my ASS my dudes. love u!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws: 
> 
> a casual mention of (past) kidnapping  
> and a mention of a dick or two (with octavio referring to his genitalia with "feminine" terms)
> 
> this is long sorry 🙈

Octavio wasn’t very good at listening to people. At least, he didn’t appear to be listening to Taejoon as he explained pretty much everything that had happened to him within the past two years—he and Mila being laid off from their engineering jobs where they programmed drones for the Apex games, living paycheck to paycheck in a dingy apartment only a few blocks away from their old orphanage, discovering the prediction algorithm, and his consequent murder and rebirth as a servant droid.

The whole time, Octavio’s eyes wandered around the room, swinging his legs over the side of his bed and chewing on his toast slowly. He even yawned at one point, which made Taejoon pause to give him a glare. Noticing he had stopped talking, Octavio asked, “That it?”

“No,” Taejoon said, and crossed his arms, trying not to look frustrated. “Are you paying attention?”

“Yep,” Octavio said around a mouthful of toast.

“Yeah? What did I just say, then?”

“Uhm.” Octavio’s face scrunched up, like it hurt to think about. “You and your sister, Mira—”

“Mila.”

“Mila, right, you guys found something-or-other that does a thing to the Apex games.” Octavio stuffed more toast into his mouth. “And she said she wouldn’t do it but then she did it behind your back.”

“It was a prediction algorithm,” Taejoon said, deciding that it had been a mistake to tell him all of this while he was still hungover. “Used to rig bets.”

Octavio’s eyes widened at that. “Do you still have it?”

“No.”

“But that’s so cool!” Octavio said, leaping to his feet excitedly. “Man, imagine how much money we could make if we had that!”

“You’re rich,” Taejoon pointed out in disbelief. “ _And_ it’s dangerous.”

Octavio waved his hand flippantly. “Yeah, but none of this money is _mine._ Not yet, anyway.”

“Anyway,” Taejoon stressed, trying to finish his story. “Like I was saying...”

Octavio stared blankly at the wall behind Taejoon while he told him how he had practically been on a leash to his programming, only able to do certain things if he interpreted Octavio’s commands to go away as an allowance of free time, before eventually becoming himself again. When Taejoon finished for real this time, Octavio got to his feet and started taking off his clothes.

“What are y-you doing?” Taejoon stammered, covering his eyes and turning away violently. 

“Takin’ a shower,” came Octavio’s voice. He heard the sound of his skinny jeans hitting the floor. “Wanna come with?”

“Shut up.” _Why. Why was he like this._

“Ha, just messing with you.” Something hit him in his face, but he still kept covering his eyes. 

“You don’t have anything to say?” Taejoon asked, affronted.

“Not really!” Octavio responded brightly. Taejoon heard the door to his bathroom close and felt that it was safe to uncover his face. Looking down at his feet, he saw that Octavio had thrown his shark-patterned boxers at him while his eyes were covered. Gross.

But there were more pressing matters at hand.

“You understand you can’t tell anyone, right?” Taejoon asked, approaching the door and speaking in a low voice so that anybody passing by wouldn't hear him.

“Yep.”

“And you’re just...fine with all this?”

“Can we talk about it later, dude? It’s like, eight in the morning.”

Taejoon sighed and turned to sit on the other’s bed, burying his face in his hands. He wasn’t entirely sure what he had been expecting from Octavio, but in hindsight, this was probably the best possible outcome. At least he wasn’t screaming for help or laughing in Taejoon’s face about it all. But still....

Octavio showered quickly, and Taejoon covered his face in the nick of time when he came out of the bathroom, listening to him bustle about and get dressed. When he was told he could look he saw the other in a pair of shorts and a shirt that had probably once been a regular v-neck, but had been ripped unevenly at the hem to become a crop-top.

“Quick question,” Octavio said conversationally as he kicked all of his dirty clothes into his laundry basket with practiced ease. “When my dad was hitting me that one time...did you, uhh, have your own mind then?”

Taejoon wasn’t sure Octavio entirely understood what he meant when he said he didn’t have control, but he realized what he was getting at anyway. 

“No, I didn’t,” Taejoon said, sounding much more apologetic about it than he wanted to let on. It still bothered him every now and then, memories of the other curled up in a ball to avoid the worst of it as his father raged before him. He wished he had done something, had upheld his job as the other's protector, but that was in the past and there was no use getting upset about it now. “I wasn’t allowed to interfere in...family matters.”

“That’s fucked up,” Octavio said, but he didn’t seem angry or upset about it. He looked over at Taejoon, meeting his eyes with a calculating expression, like he was trying to figure out what to do next. And honestly? He didn’t know where they would go from here, if they were going to go right back to what they’d previously been; charge and bodyguard.

The thought displeased him. He felt like it would be an even larger blow than before now that the other was aware of his humanity, and his sanity would surely go into decline if he had to pretend he was not a person once again. Maybe he would consider wiping that hard-drive so he could become a mindless android for real.

“So nobody can know, or else you’re gonna die?” Octavio asked, interrupting his internal spiral.

“Probably," Taejoon said, swallowing. His life was in the other's hands right now. "Yes.”

“Okay.” Octavio cocked his head to the side, looking elsewhere as he thought about it. Taejoon was sure that if he had a heart it would be beating inside his metal chest. “Let’s be friends, then, but we’ll act like you’re just a normal robot. That can’t be hard, right?”

“It shouldn’t be.” An uncomfortable feeling started prickling in his throat. He wasn’t entirely sure if Octavio could keep up the pretense for long—he seemed forgetful and disregarded anything that didn’t benefit him personally. It was a dangerous gamble, but at this point, what other choice did Taejoon have?

“Sounds interesting,” Octavio said with a grin. “Trying not to get caught.”

“Yeah,” Taejoon mumbled, voice growing quieter as he heard Irina’s footsteps stomping down the hall. “Don’t get caught.”

* * *

Two weeks passed, and Taejoon was living his double-life a little differently than he had before.

During the day he acted as he did before he undid his programming—adhering to every command, looking after Octavio when he went out, protecting him. A mindless servant, though occasionally if they were alone together he was allowed to drop the façade and talk to Octavio like a normal person.

For example, the two of them had almost gotten mugged in the city, but Taejoon was able to tackle the offender and notify the police using his database, knocking the knife from her hands with one clean hit.

“That was hot,” Octavio laughed, snapping a picture of the woman struggling beneath Taejoon. “And _hilarious._ ”

“Don’t film this,” Taejoon chided, but his voice lacked any serious bite.

“What _are_ you?” The woman spat, her face squashed onto the gravel. Octavio walked over and stomped hard on her fingers with his boot, her arm pinned down by Taejoon’s knee so she wasn’t able to move it at all. She screamed in pain, and Taejoon winced at the audible sound of one of her fingers breaking as she sobbed beneath him.

“None of your fuckin’ business,” Octavio said lightly, having switched to English. “Shouldn’t have done that, amiga.”

“Octavio,” Taejoon said, and their eyes met. The other man stared at him before shrugging and backing away, going back to taking pictures on his phone. The police arrested her while she screamed at them to arrest Octavio instead, waving her swollen hand around, but once Octavio showed the police his I.D they left the matter alone, ushering her into the back of their car. He wondered if the other often used his identity to get out of trouble like that.

As they walked back to where Delilah was waiting, smoking a cigarette a couple of feet away from the car, Taejoon said, “That was unnecessary.”

“She tried stabbing me!" Octavio said, offended. "Was I supposed to just let her get away with it?"

“What if she had managed to shove me off and _did_ stab you? You shouldn’t have gotten so close. It’s not safe.”

“Okay, _mom._ ”

Taejoon hit Octavio hard with his elbow, and smirked at the _‘ow’_ he let out. “We can’t have you get kidnapped again.”

“I was only ever kidnapped _once,_ ” Octavio replied, indignant, and Taejoon smirked at the way his ears were turning red. “I was fourteen! And everyone else has failed since then!”

They got back into the car, and the banter between them stopped abruptly, almost like a switch had been flipped. Octavio ignored him the whole way home, and once they arrived, ordered him to fix him a cup of ramen without so much as a backwards glance. He was good at acting—good at treating Taejoon like he didn’t matter, like he was nothing more than a servant.

But it was hard for Taejoon—these jarring switches between being equals and then once again unequal. Now that he was being given a small taste of having a normal life once again, that just made the reality of it all more warped and frustrating—it didn't help that he thought he was starting to genuinely care for and get along with Octavio, which just made the moments where he looked down upon him hurt a little more than they had previously 

At night time, though, when everyone else was asleep, they were friends for several hours without the need to stop or pretend otherwise.

Octavio asked him to play video games with him more than once, dug out volumes of manga he hadn’t read in years to let Taejoon leaf through them, invited him out more than once to go to the dirt tracks again. Taejoon hadn't even realized how bored, how bland and static his life had been without entertainment until he was spending nearly every night _being_ entertained.

Perhaps that was the wrong word, entertainment. But having lived his new life doing nothing but staying awake 24/7 serving others and hacking, the ability to do something as fun and enjoyable as video games was refreshing to him. He’d only played one once before this, when Octavio had wanted him to win that tournament for him, but he felt himself getting back into the groove of playing FPS games easily as the days progressed.

“Wow,” Octavio said, watching him play Overwatch from behind him. It was just after dinner time, and they'd started playing games almost as soon as they got back to his room. “You’re really good. Can you get me to grandmaster?”

“You’re in silver,” Taejoon pointed out, putting a healing orb on his team’s McCree. The McCree wasn't very good—no one was, in this low rank, but he had been in masters before his death, so he was practically carrying the team any way.

“Only on healing! I’m diamond on DPS and plat on tank." Octavio kicked the back of his chair. "Carry me."

“Doesn’t this count as cheating, anyway?”

“Who cares? I want grandmaster.”

“You,” Taejoon mumbled under his breath, discording the enemy Pharah and killing her easily, “are a spoiled little brat.”

“Off,” Octavio commanded suddenly, getting to his feet and pushing against Taejoon harshly. “Off of my chair!”

Taejoon laughed, swatting the other away with one hand while he used his other to continue discording players, earning him three assists. Octavio tried tipping the chair over, but Taejoon did his best to balance against it so the chair was forced back onto the ground, steady.

This resulted in a forceful back-and-forth, Taejoon managing to keep the chair steady while Octavio pushed against the wall with his legs to try and tip him over. Taejoon laughed again when the other slipped and fell, but they both froze when they heard footsteps outside.

“Octavio?” Came one of the maids’ voices—Fernanda. “Is someone in there with you?”

“Just playin’ games,” Octavio called, shoving a distracted Taejoon successfully out of the chair and taking his place. Taejoon laid low on the ground, prepared to crawl under the bed in case Fernanda entered, but she was just standing right outside the door, voice loud.

“With someone else?”

“Online, Nan,” Octavio said. He was astonishingly good at lying. “I just forgot to plug in my headphones. Did you need something?”

“I’m just reminding you that it’s Miss Hauser’s birthday tomorrow,” Fernanda said. “Your father wants you to dress appropriately. And, I quote, ‘take all that godforsaken metal out’.”

 _Miss Hauser._ Strange that they called Adele by her maiden name when she was married to Kishou. Taejoon wondered if this was because of how many wives and girlfriends he seemed to cycle through. 

“Not happenin’. Night, Nan.”

“Good night,” Fernanda sighed, and they both waited for the sound of her footsteps to fade away before they spoke.

“Close one, huh?” Octavio grinned down at him. Taejoon got to his feet and pointed at the computer, where he had died and was waiting in the spawn room while his team spammed the need for healing. Octavio let him sit back down, and they got so close that Taejoon was able to sense that his heart was beating rapidly in his chest, evidently nervous from what had just happened.

“Are you okay?” Taejoon asked him, when really, it should be the other way around.

“Oh yeah.” Octavio’s gaze shifted to the door, as if expecting Fernanda to burst in. “It’s just...what a rush, huh?”

The enemy Pharah cornered him and solo-ulted him as an act of vengeance. Taejoon glanced at the other and said, “Weirdo.”

Octavio’s eyes flashed back towards him. “Says the robot.”

“Technically, I’m a cyborg more than anything.”

“ _Technically, I’m a cyborg,’_ ” Octavio mocked him in a nasally voice. “Man, shut up.”

They played for a couple hours more before Taejoon made Octavio get into bed, knowing he’d bitch about being tired tomorrow if he didn’t get any sleep before Adele’s dinner party. He was staying in the other's room most nights now, since he wasn't doing anything with that hard-drive as of late. There wasn’t really any need to, having disabled so much of his programming already, and he was a bit afraid to do too much at once lest the Syndicate become aware of his interference.

Octavio had bought him a new hard-drive while they were out the other day, however; he had yet to get started on it, knowing he’d have to import some of the more complicated code from one hard-drive to the other, but everything was starting to fall into place slowly. Maybe his dreams of being able to go back to normal and return home didn't seem so hopeless, now. Difficult, sure, but not entirely hopeless.

But that was in the far, distant future. The present snored before him, having been asleep for about an hour now. Taejoon watched the rise and fall of Octavio’s chest, still envious of his fully flesh body and the warmth he could almost feel radiating off of him. He reached a hand out to smooth back the other’s hair, but his fingers froze before he retracted his hand slowly.

He didn’t need to do that anymore—not that he’d ever done that before, but that action was certainly his programming speaking. He swore he could feel it humming beneath his skin, that urge to protect Octavio, so he left his room so he could take a walk around the house and clear his head, basking in the moonlight.

Adele’s birthday was going to be a big event, and they were apparently heading out. Irina made Taejoon dress Octavio again, but this time he merely tossed the other his folded clothes and sat on his bed, arms crossed over his chest.

"I don't even know why we're going," Octavio said, shucking off his sweats with a little difficulty, as he was trying to move too quickly. "She can't stand being in public with me. I bet she's only inviting me 'cuz her sister wants to see me. Auntie Léo _loves_ me."

"Does she?" Taejoon hummed, flipping through the final volume of a sports manga he'd been reading.

"She got me a huge box of chocolates for my birthday last year. Nobody else brought me anything." Octavio paused, before he returned to the task at hand, voice marginally quieter as he added, "Léo's alright."

Taejoon lowered his book, wanting to ask if he was okay, but he changed the subject quickly.

“Oh, by the way,” Octavio said, pulling on his white dress shirt, but when he started buttoning it up the holes were all off by one. “Apparently you’re not coming with us.”

Taejoon arched an eyebrow. Octavio had not been outside of the house without him once, unless you counted those times he snuck out. It was strange to him that he wasn't going to be tagging along, considering the reason for his existence was to ensure Octavio's safety. "Why is that?”

“She thinks you’re freaky.” Octavio stared at the belt he had been given, nose scrunched up, before he tossed it over his shoulder and pulled on his slacks. “So you’re not going. And we’ll have ‘real’ guards with us at the restaurant. Shame. Léo would have thought you were cool. And sexy. She's kinda weird."

“Put on your belt,” Taejoon said, disregarding what he had just said, though his cheeks were flushed a little.

“No.”

“You’re too skinny, your pants are going to fall down," he admonished.

Octavio purposely shimmied his hips so that his white slacks slipped a little on his body. "Don't care.”

“Octavio. _Belt._ ”

“Make me.”

Taejoon got to his feet suddenly, trying to scare the other into doing it like he had the other day, but he merely smirked up at him defiantly.

 _Annoying brat._ With a roll of his eyes, Taejoon took the belt off of his shoulder for him and looked down, fitting it through the loops to the best of his ability. It was actually kind of hard to put someone else’s belt on, but Taejoon managed it, albeit awkwardly as he reached his arms around the other’s waist to make sure the belt was going through correctly.

Just to annoy the other, Taejoon pulled the part of the belt with the holes as tightly as he could, but relented when the other visibly winced. With one final sigh Taejoon did the other’s belt buckle for him before picking up the tie, which was thankfully a clip-on, because Taejoon hated tying ties.

“No,” Octavio said.

“I agree.” Taejoon nodded, and tossed it into his laundry basket. If questions were asked, he could simply pretend he had no idea what happened to it between the laundry room and Octavio’s room. 

The (white) peacoat could go on last, and it was left discarded on the back of Octavio’s chair as the other combed his dark hair without actually caring, almost leaving it messier than it had been before he started. Taejoon watched him, wondering what he was going to do without the other here. Just stay in here and read manga until he comes home, or be forced to help out with the rest of the house? Maybe he could finally start on that hard-drive with the absolute privacy of a locked door and closed curtains, but that was if Irina didn't order him to clean the toilets or something.

“Wanna pick my earrings for me?” Octavio asked, pointing to a tub full of them. They were messy and disorganized, and Taejoon wondered how he could find anything that matched.

“Not really,” he responded honestly. “Doesn’t your father want you to take them out, anyway?”

“I don’t care,” Octavio said, poking at his eyebrow piercing, which he didn’t wear that often, but he had put it on tonight specifically to spite Kishou. He stared at his reflection, lips pursed, before he announced, “I wanna dye my hair.”

Taejoon hummed. “What color?”

“Green,” was the instant reply.

Taejoon was forcibly reminded of that _Thing_ in his draw. “You like green, don’t you?”

“It’s my favorite color,” Octavio said with a smile towards him, a genuine smile, and Taejoon thought to himself that the other was rather pretty when he wasn’t being too annoying or extra. 

A half hour later he bowed almost mockingly to the family as they put on their coats, all in matching white, though Adele had splashes of purple and gold in her outfit that made him wonder if she only adhered to the all-white color scheme this family had because of Kishou. Maybe she and Octavio had a little more in common than they both thought—the neon pink earrings Octavio had chosen for the event were extremely noticeable against his dark hair and blindingly white clothes.

“I want all my suits pressed by tomorrow,” Kishou informed Irina, who bowed.

“Yes, sir.”

“And have the mandelschnitten ready for us by the time we get home,” Adele added, adjusting the faux fur shawl around her neck. “You know how I like it.”

"Yes, miss,” the cook replied with a bow as well.

“Yo,” Octavio said, and everyone turned to look at him. He tilted his chin up at Taejoon and commanded, “Clean my room for me.”

Taejoon nodded his head. “I will.”

An excuse for Taejoon to stay in Octavio’s room without being called on by the rest of the staff. Good. He watched Delilah bow to them as well before handing her keys to the other driver, hanging her chauffeur's hat up on a hook, clearly her night off. Taejoon headed back towards Octavio’s room, still watching them leave through the windows—the gate swung open and their Benz rolled out of sight, but he swore he could see Octavio watching him back through his car window.

Locking himself inside the other’s room, he quickly made his way to the PC, having made up his mind on what he wanted to do for tonight. He hadn’t tried it before now, too afraid to make changes to Irina’s computer lest she start asking questions, but with Octavio aware of everything now, he could rig it so his IP address was untraceable and send a message to Mystik.

He hadn’t forgotten about her, even amongst all this back-and-forth between him and Octavio—even if things were ‘better’ for him now, he still wanted to leave this place. Get the hell out, get his life back, maybe clear his name. Get revenge on the Syndicate, somehow. Expose them.

But first, he needed Mystik. He needed her to know he was _alive._

So he started writing her a message. Two messages, actually. A fake message layered on top of a real one, disguised as a life insurance sales pitch, but in actuality revealing his identity and whereabouts, asking her to respond so that he could tell her the full story of what had happened to him. He had confidence in her abilities—even if he made this address untraceable, Mystik had taught him everything he knew. She had her ways, and would get back to him somehow. He was sure of it.

Hours passed, but Taejoon almost didn’t notice, fingers flying across the keyboard as he encrypted everything, making absolutely sure that to an outsider, it would seem like nothing more than a spam email, but Mystik knew where to look. He just hoped she would get back to him soon, because he needed her to know that she hadn’t lost both Mila and him. Just...just Mila.

He stilled. He’d tried not thinking about it too much but...he did miss Mila. A lot. He was angry at both her and the Syndicate, but he was sad, most of all. He hadn’t had the time to really mourn the loss of one of the few people in the world he could call his family, because his grief period had occurred while he was unable to express it. Now, he felt some mixture of numb and melancholic. Almost hopeless, even though he logically knew there was _some_ light at the end of the tunnel. He just had to get through all of this, first.

Taking a deep breath, he continued. There was no use in getting hung up on it right now, not when he couldn’t really do anything about it. Not _yet._

Taejoon thought he heard Octavio and the others come home sometime after ten, but the other man didn’t return to his room until almost eleven, long after Taejoon had sent the message and sat himself silently in the corner in case anyone other than him came in. Octavio stared blankly at his seemingly empty room, before dropping his coat to the ground and collapsing onto his bed face-down. Getting to his feet, Taejoon approached, an eyebrow raised.

“What happened?”

“Jesus fuck,” Octavio groaned, startling just a little. “I didn’t realize you were in here.”

Taejoon reached out to help the other undress, to get him into more comfortable clothing, before quickly backing away, averting his eyes. That...was his programming talking, not him. He was simply being prompted to do so. With a little shake of his head he instead started prodding the other, mumbling for him to put on pajamas before he fell asleep in his day clothes.

“I’m not going to sleep. I’m bored.” Octavio sat up, moving to take his piercings out of his face and ears. He was scowling, so Taejoon asked,

“What happened?”

Octavio instantly launched into a tirade of complaints about pretty much _everything._ The restaurant they went to, the guards who had practically been breathing down his neck the whole time, his stepmother’s theatrics when it came to all of the gifts she got, which was just expensive thing upon expensive thing that she didn’t actually like, but the show of money got her more excited than anything else.

His aunt hadn't been there apparently, disallowed from future family events, which Adele implied _could_ happen to Octavio in the near future if he kept acting out.

He finally trailed off into bitter silence, and Taejoon realized that he had sat himself next to the other without realizing. 

“It’s whatever,” Octavio said after a long while, kicking his legs out impatiently. “It doesn’t matter. Everyone just leaves in the end."

Taejoon wondered if it was because his own birthday had gotten so little attention that was making him particularly annoyed about today. He didn’t blame him—his own twenty-first birthday had been nothing short of grand by his previous birthdays’ standards, spent at a karaoke bar while Mila and her friends bought him drink after drink until he passed out and had to be driven home. It was strange to think that someone far more well-off than him had had a worse birthday by comparison. The memory of this event was interrupted by Octavio abruptly changing the subject:

“Hey, what kind of music do you like?”

“Why?” Taejoon blinked, a little taken aback by this sudden shift.

“Just wondering.” Octavio squinted at him, head tilting to the side like a puppy. “You look like you’re into k-pop.”

“That is _incredibly_ racist.”

“Are you, though?”

“....Yes,” he admitted reluctantly. He thought back to the amount of albums and photocards back at his old apartment and wondered if they'd been destroyed or sold in his absence.

“I like k-pop too, dude," Octavio laughed. "You just...you look like a girl-group kinda guy.”

“I think you’re projecting.”

“Am not.” Octavio poked Taejoon’s cheek and he jerked his head to the side, face scrunching up. He wasn’t used to getting touched and actually _feeling_ it—if anyone touched him, it was usually on the metal parts of his body, which he _sensed_ more than actually felt. He realized Octavio was staring at him, eyes a little wide.

“What?” Taejoon asked, confused.

“I thought it’d be synthetic flesh or something.” Octavio poked him again, eyes getting wider. “‘Cuz of your chin and ears. I thought your face was metal too.”

“It’s real,” Taejoon responded, trying not to think about it too hard lest he start freaking himself out.

Octavio pinched his cheek with a grin and Taejoon rolled his eyes, but let him continue. It was easiest to just let him have his fun until he grew bored and went onto the next thing. Octavio’s hand travelled down to his metal chest, hitting his knuckles against it before running his finger up the sharp line of Taejoon’s metallic jaw. He seemed faintly interested, and Taejoon was reminded of him holding that Hyperfighting guy's synthetic hand weeks ago.

“Do you feel pain?” Octavio asked curiously—his eyes were a little glazed over, as if thinking hard about something. “I’ve asked you that before, haven’t I?”

“You did.” Taejoon paused, trying to remember the circumstances. It was after Octavio had been hit by his father, and the other had hit him out of...anger, or frustration, or whatever. “I said no, but I don’t really know.”

“What do you mean?”

Taejoon hit his own exposed chest harshly, but he didn’t feel it. Didn’t feel the force of it, didn’t feel the cold of his metal hand or its texture. Just...knew that he had hit himself. Sensed it, to put it vaguely. Something told him, _you have been hit,_ and simultaneously, _you just hit something._ It was hard to put it into words, but he tried his best.

“I don’t feel anything—not like you do. Something tells me I feel it. Does that make sense? Like an alarm got triggered in that area, and I _know_ something happened there because I'm being told so, but I can't really feel it or experience it."

Octavio hit him too, wincing harshly before shaking out his hand. Idiot. He asked, “So you don’t feel anything on your body?”

Taejoon nodded, and Octavio stared up at him, eyebrows furrowed. Taejoon wanted to ask what he was thinking, but the next thing he knew, fingers were lightly tracing themselves down his cheek, warm and alive and gentle. It was almost shocking to him, and his face jolted a little, trying to escape the sensation.

“You feel that?” Octavio's voice was full of curiosity, head cocked to the side, eyes studying him as his fingers chased after the other's face.

Taejoon raised his hand to grab at Octavio’s, holding it away from him. He couldn’t feel the warmth of the other’s palm in his own, merely sensing it once again, but he pressed the man's hand back to his face after a moment of deliberation. It was not a fluke—he could indeed feel it, but it was almost strange to feel a living person against him. He’d felt other things on his face—namely water and breath, but skin was different. More intimate.

“Your hand’s warm,” Taejoon noted. He could feel little scars and calluses on his fingers, and the other’s pinky nail, which was slightly longer than the rest of his nails due to an uneven cutting job, lightly scratching against his cheek.

Octavio’s hands weren’t necessarily small, but they weren’t big, either. He noticed this when he let the other’s hand drop back into his lap, having never really looked at them before. There were little spots on the nails of his left hand that showed black nail polish that had been mostly scratched away, and the underside of that same hand was covered in smudged ink from his left-handedness. He wondered what he had been writing—he hadn’t seen him pick up a pen in nearly a week.

Octavio raised his other hand to Taejoon’s face, his right hand, and cupped it, running his thumb over the metal bits embedded into his skin. Here, the feeling in Taejoon’s face was more muted. Numb. He remembered thinking that his eye on the right side of his face was cybernetic, and the metal indentions on his face were for it. He could still feel, it wasn't the same numbness as the rest of his body, but not as clearly as the left side of his face.

He relayed all of this information to Octavio, whose own hazel eyes were still focused on him, intense. It was almost unnerving for a man who usually had trouble paying attention to things that didn’t interest him.

“So you can’t feel it when I do this?” Octavio asked, flicking his index finger against his cheek.

“I can,” Taejoon said, squinting one eye shut in case the other decided to poke that, too. “Just not as clearly.”

Octavio scooted a little towards him, so that their knees brushed against each other’s, and Taejoon realized with a jolt just how close they had gotten. He could count every individual eyelash on the other, and speaking of which, his eyes were very pretty, even in the dim lighting of his room. They were even prettier when they were focused and sharp, not inattentive and glazed, like they often seemed to be.

He sensed that the other was pinching his ear.

“Feel that?”

“No. It’s metal. Or covered in metal, at least. I don’t know where the human part of me ends.”

“Do you have organs?”

Taejoon honestly didn’t know. He would have to find out, dig it up in Hammond Robotics’ blueprints to see the way this body had been built. He could _breathe,_ and his brain was working somehow, so he had to have lungs and a heart, right?

“I’m not sure,” he said aloud because he didn't want to open that can of worms yet, and flinched when Octavio jabbed him in the eye. “I felt _that."_

“Sorry,” Octavio said, smiling at him, but he seemed rather unapologetic. “You’re just interesting.”

“Do I amuse you?” Taejoon asked, a little sarcastically.

“Yep.” Octavio’s smile faded a little as he switched hands, moving his right hand to his lap and cupping Taejoon’s face with his left again. 

“We’ve already established I can feel there,” Taejoon said, hands curling into the bedsheets beneath them as he fought back the urge to lean into the other’s touch. It was still almost a new feeling, being touched like this, but a welcomed one.

“I know,” Octavio mused. “Let me know if you feel this.”

He leaned forward quickly, kissing Taejoon, before leaning back once again. Taejoon’s eyes were wide, mind going blank. He wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that—if he should respond at all. He wanted to stand up, shove the other away because this was inappropriate, and leave. He wanted to tell him that whatever he was trying to do here, whatever he was trying to _start,_ wasn’t possible, and that they needed to stop before this got too dangerous.

...No, that was his programming, he was sure, screaming at him that it was unprofessional to kiss the person he was supposed to protect. He _had_ felt that, and it was nice. Different.

“Did you feel it?”

Taejoon nodded, silent.

The other man pushed him down onto the bed, slowly, like he was testing the waters. Taejoon didn’t know what was happening, not really—why he was doing this, what part of Taejoon appealed to him when he could hardly feel anywhere that wasn’t half of his own face.

Octavio didn't seem to care, clambering on top of him, the misplaced buttons on his shirt more obvious at this angle as he leaned over Taejoon to kiss him again, longer and harder than before. His hand moved from Taejoon’s face to his chest, and even if he couldn’t feel it, he almost imagined that he could; the way the other's fingers were splayed across the expanse of metal there, warm and alive. His own hands found the other’s waist, holding him steady in case he slipped due to the awkward way in which they were half-laying on the bed, but Octavio was steady above him, head tilting to the side to kiss him deeper.

Eventually Octavio pulled away, and Taejoon could feel his breath against his skin as he tried to catch it. He sensed that the other’s heart was racing, so fast that you would think he had just run a marathon. 

“You feel human,” Octavio told him through his pants.

“I am,” Taejoon responded, voice sounding quiet and faraway in his own ears.

“I know, I know, but—” Octavio used his free hand to tilt Taejoon’s face closer to him, practically mouthing against his own lips, desperate. “ _Real._ You’re real.”

Octavio kissed him again, and again and again, and Taejoon kissed back, eyes drifting shut while he tried to make sense of it all. He didn’t know if he wanted this to happen, didn’t know why Octavio was doing it when more of him was metal than not—all he knew right now was that it was a relief to have his face be touched gently like this, especially from a man who seemed incapable of handling anything with care.

They moved further up the bed, Octavio straddling his waist and Taejoon doing his best to reciprocate the way the other was touching him, but it was hard to tell if he was being gentle or not, what with his lack of real sensation. A hand ran through his hair and he enjoyed the feeling, letting out a little noise he didn’t even know he was capable of as Octavio kept kissing him.

He cupped the other’s face, doing his best to do it lightly, unsure if he was successful, but Octavio gave him no indication otherwise. They pulled away briefly so Octavio could catch his breath, but too soon for his own good he was pressing against Taejoon again, somehow harder than before. 

They kept at it for several minutes, lips swollen from how hard Octavio liked it, tongues moving against one another, which was a foreign feeling to Taejoon, new body or not. He was inexperienced, and wasn’t sure if Octavio was any better than him, but that didn’t matter at the moment. They both existed in this little bubble, warm and intimate and close, so close Taejoon could pretend that he actually felt the other’s jaw in his hand and the exposed skin of his hip that his other thumb was currently rubbing circles into.

Finally Octavio collapsed to the side, spread-eagled across the bed, half on top of Taejoon’s body as he stared at the ceiling, catching his breath. Taejoon touched his own lips, imagining he could feel the bruises on them from the force of Octavio’s kissing.

So that had happened. 

He had liked it. _Wanted_ it, strangely enough.

“Fuck,” Octavio panted beside him, slipping his hand down his pants, belt long discarded. “I’m horny.”

“Cool,” Taejoon said, not really sure how he was supposed to respond, mind still moving at a million miles an hour as he tried to process everything.

“Do you have a dick?”

“ _No._ ” He was pretty sure that if his face hadn’t been red from before, it was certainly red now.

“Figures.” Octavio rolled off the bed with a groan. “I’m gonna go shower.”

Taejoon watched him get undressed, throwing his clothes carelessly onto the ground, but closed his eyes when he hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his rabbit-themed boxers, pointedly turning his face away so the other wouldn't think that he was peeking.

“Hey.”

Taejoon hummed to let him know he was listening.

“You can look at me, y’know.”

He didn’t really want to. Well, he did, but something about it would make this situation all too real. How the hell had they wound up like this? It seemed like just yesterday he was listening to the other drunkenly tell him that he believed he was human, and now they were...making out on his bed. Or whatever.

“Taejoon.”

...Fuck. His name.

He opened his eyes slowly before turning his head, meeting the other’s eyes in the semi-darkness of the room. He was naked, sitting on the edge of his bed, half-twisted to face him. Taejoon could count the moles and freckles on his back, but was afraid to look lower. This was made harder to do when Octavio laid down beside him, turning so he was facing him, curled up on his side.

“I thought you were going to take a shower,” Taejoon mumbled, keeping his eyes pointedly trained on the other's.

“In a minute,” Octavio said. He reached over, grabbing Taejoon’s limp hand and guiding it towards him until his fingers were splayed against the other’s scarred chest. “I know you can’t feel me, but you can still touch me.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” The other asked, the ghost of a smile playing on his lips.

“Because none of this is real.”

“I’m pretty sure _I’m_ real.”

“You don’t get it,” Taejoon said, and not even he was sure what he meant by it, either. 

The sensation wasn’t real? Whatever _‘relationship’_ they had right now wasn’t real? The feelings Taejoon felt, thrumming beneath his skin and racing through his mind, weren’t real? How could he be certain they were his own, and not a weird concoction of his programming and his own personal desires? He had wanted to be touched, that was for sure, touched and handled gently like he was a person again—had those desires mixed with his programming to prioritize Octavio? Had it been warped so that he wanted to touch Octavio, and be touched by him?

He didn’t know. He honestly didn’t know, and it was freaking him out a little, how much of it he was unsure of. 

He wanted to kiss Octavio. Wanted to press him close, feel but not _really_ feel the other's body beneath his hands, his lips. And at the same time he was arguing with himself— _Do you_ really _want this?_

“Fine,” Octavio said, as if reading his mind, and let go of his hand, though his eyes were starting to show a little characteristic impatience. “You decide.”

Taejoon swallowed, still making eye contact. “Decide what?”

“What you want to do with me.”

When he said it like that, it sounded a lot more sensual than it actually was. Maybe he had intended it to be that way, or maybe it really was that sensual, and Taejoon just didn’t know how to react. He really didn’t know how to handle a lot of things, right now.

He stared at the hand on Octavio’s chest, unfeeling. He didn’t know if he could really feel the other’s heartbeat or if it was just the thing inside of him that was constantly scanning the other to make sure he was alright, but it was beating fast in anticipation, his chest rising and falling more quickly than normal. He moved his hand slowly to Octavio’s side, fingers skimming lightly over his ribs before settling at his hip.

He really couldn’t feel any of it—but it was better than nothing, he supposed. He could, however, feel Octavio’s breath against his cheek, so he turned his face towards him a little more and kissed him, initiating contact this time. Octavio kissed back, not as hard as earlier, but enough that Taejoon felt the barely-restrained eagerness in his actions. They pressed close to one another, Taejoon twisting his body so he was on his side like the other man and doing his best to not make a fool of himself with his inexperienced mouth.

Octavio didn’t seem to mind either way, the kiss getting more and more sloppy as they tried to figure out a groove with one another, a mission that was soon abandoned as Taejoon just enjoyed how it felt to have his tongue inside the other’s mouth. He’d always cringed away at the sight of movie kisses, but the real thing was far better than he thought it would be.

His hand had moved from the man’s hip to his ass; when he realized this he hurriedly jerked his hand away, apologizing against his lips, but Octavio laughed at him and moved his hand back with a “It’s _fine,_ lighten up”.

His suit jacket was soon tugged off by Octavio’s hands, which was a terrible idea in Taejoon’s opinion—he couldn’t imagine that the cold metal of his torso and arms would be pleasant to anyone in this sort of situation, but Octavio either didn’t care or was into it, shoving it to the floor without much ceremony.

Even if Taejoon couldn’t feel most of it, he liked touching him like this. It was different from any way he’d ever touched someone in his life, and it was almost a shame that he was experiencing it for the first time in this new body, but at the very least it seemed that Octavio was enjoying it, gasping into his mouth on occasion and pressing close to Taejoon despite everything.

The noises he was making were really...really hot. It was doing something funny to Taejoon, who moved away from the other’s mouth to kiss his throat, a little awkward because of the angle, but he was rewarded with Octavio gasping louder and curling his fingers against his metal chest. He wanted to make him feel good, he decided, because if he couldn’t feel it himself—he wanted the other to feel it for him.

One of Octavio’s hands tugged at his hair again as he pressed his lips to the other’s skin, sucking a dark mark at the juncture between his neck and shoulder. Taejoon slowly moved his other hand between Octavio’s legs, an unasked question at the tip of his tongue as he moved back up to briefly kiss the other’s lips once again.

“Can I-?” He asked, not really sure how he was going to ask it.

“I have lube,” Octavio panted against him, opening his pretty hazel eyes so Taejoon could see that he was a little delirious, lips wet and face flushed. “In my—”

“I know,” he responded, lest he be forced to think about that bright green _Thing._ He flipped over to dig through the other’s draw, pointedly ignoring everything in it until he found what he was looking for and sat up a little, uncapping the bottle of lube and squeezing some onto his fingers. God, this would probably be a bitch to clean later, but...

“Fuck, that’s cold,” Octavio groaned, bracing one hand against the arm that was propping Taejoon up, his other occupied with pressing a finger inside of the other. He was trying to make sure that he wasn’t hurting him, watching carefully as he worked his finger in and out, but Octavio tugged him back down so they were kissing again.

Taejoon added another finger, moving them in a scissoring motion as he tried to figure out what exactly would make the other tick. He’d never done this before, and on top of being unable to feel how gentle or rough he was being with Octavio, he was also afraid that he would hurt him with his inexperience—but Octavio never said anything, didn’t complain or push him away. Just kept kissing him and occasionally bucked his hips up into Taejoon’s hand with a moan that made him fear the rest of the house would wake up.

He added a third finger, pausing when Octavio froze up a little, but he quickly melted into a mess of heavy breathing and groans against Taejoon’s mouth. It was really enjoyable to hear and watch, almost as pleasurable as if he were actually receiving physical gratification from it.

Octavio had a nice body. He'd already thought that before, but having him naked beneath him only reinforced that thought, the line of his abs a little more prominent since he last saw them and the musculature of his thighs clenching around Taejoon's hand. He pressed kisses to his chest, mapping out the other's body and trying to find the areas that made him cry out the most.

“Shit,” Octavio groaned, gripping a fistful of Taejoon’s hair as he ran his tongue along the other's skin, tasting sweat. “If you keep that up, I’m gonna cum.”

“Is that not the point?” Taejoon asked quietly, curling his fingers a little so it made Octavio whine, reveling in the way his face and chest were flushing bright red. He really did enjoy watching him come undone. 

“Shut up,” he mumbled, and then whined again until his body tensed up. “Fuck, do that again, _please,_ Taejoon—”

He moaned loudly, and Taejoon kissed him through it so the rest of the house wouldn’t hear, but it was still very audible. He felt like there was electricity sparking beneath his skin, reacting to the way the other had said his name, and it was far more pleasurable than anything else he had felt so far. When he finally relaxed, Taejoon slid his fingers out and looked at them, wincing a little at how...sticky and wet they were. Maybe he should have thought that through, what with having a metal body and all. But it was worth it to see Octavio fall apart beneath him and beg for him, gaze drifting over the other's limp body while he recovered from what they'd just done.

"Thanks," Octavio panted, eyes flying open to fix Taejoon with a stare. "My pussy appreciates it."

"You are so _obnoxious_ ," Taejoon groaned, covering his face with his clean hand.

"I know. I do it on purpose."

They both moved silently after that—Octavio clambering into the shower while Taejoon scrubbed at his hands with soap and avoided looking at his face, which seemed to be permanently flushed red at this point.

He returned to the other’s room, picking his suit jacket off the floor and wondering if he should put it in Octavio’s laundry basket, before figuring that Irina would have more than a few questions about it. But it _had_ been a couple of days since he had last washed it—he would need to do so soon. He took off his pants and folded them neatly, deciding that it was best to do so now, while everyone was asleep.

He left Octavio’s room but returned quickly thereafter to discover the man sitting in his bed, wearing a loose pink t-shirt with a cartoon bunny on it and a pair of track shorts. He raised an eyebrow at the state Taejoon was in—he was naked technically, yes, but he was also made out of metal and had Ken doll anatomy, so it didn’t matter much.

“Do you sleep?” Octavio asked him, curious.

“Not really,” Taejoon answered, crossing his arms over his chest, somewhat self-conscious despite all this. “I can go into a ‘sleep mode’, but I am always technically conscious.”

“Whatever the hell that means,” Octavio scoffed under his breath, before throwing his arm out, gesturing to his bed. “Well, come ‘sleep mode’ with me, loser.”

“What if I don’t want to?” Taejoon asked dryly. Octavio shrugged.

“Your loss.”

He felt that they were both acting way too casual for two people who had just had sort-of sex, but he preferred this casual attitude to anything else. He needed casualness, needed a sense of normality with the type of life he currently had. This back-and-forth was something he had grown accustomed to, sex or not, and so after a moment of deliberation, he climbed into bed with Octavio as well.

Octavio instantly pressed up against him, limbs wrapping around his body like an octopus. It was a strange sensation, to be laying in a bed like this, as if he were going to actually asleep.

Sleeping seemed like far too human of an activity for him to partake in with this new body, but so had sex—any sort of intimacy really, and yet he had just finished making another man come on his fingers. It sounded almost bewildering to say, but it made him feel more like a real person than anything else had so far. Well, that, and having his name said.

Taejoon nudged the other’s thigh as gently as he could, and Octavio responded with a "hm?”

“Aren’t I cold?" He didn't want Octavio to feel obligated to touch him after what they had done, knowing he must be slick and freezing to the touch.

“Yeah, but I don’t care,” Octavio slurred, apparently already halfway asleep, but he tightened his arms around Taejoon, as if daring him to run away. “‘S hot in here, anyway.”

"Is it? I can't tell."

"Yeah. Night, 'Joon."

And just like that, he was snoring, Taejoon's face flushing a deep red as he felt the other's breath against the back of his head, a pleasant tingling feeling taking hold of his body after the other had said his name. He still needed to figure all of this out, get his life back on track and sort through what was and wasn't real, but...he was almost sure that he wanted this. 

Almost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> um we 🙈
> 
> sorry of this is incredibly unsexy. i keep sneezing and it is hard to be sexy when your brain is leaking out of your nose i think
> 
> ANYWAYS...almost 30k words of sexual tension lead to this moment. ngl i wasn't gonna put any sexy stuff in this fic but i was peer-pressured by the sheer amount of horny comments and dms i got about this fic . yall are crazy for robo dick or smth
> 
> anyways feel free to drop a review ! i might take a break from this fic if my lungs continue to want to yeet themselves from my body so sorry !!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its been almost 2 months oops but its pride month so i did this for the girls the gays and the theys

Life once again shifted for Taejoon.

The amount of changes he’d experienced in the past three months would be enough to drive anyone insane—first going from a human being to what was basically a reanimated corpse with no free will; to someone with free will but hiding that fact; to a friend of his charge who must yet still be treated unequally; and now...a romantic partner?

They pretended that everything was the same after that night. He still pretended to take commands, still accompanied Octavio everywhere he went, still snuck out with him in the dead of the night to go to the dirt tracks.

But they got riskier. They stood in empty hallway corners, lips connected and hands fumbling over one another’s bodies. They held hands on outings, Taejoon’s suit jacket buttoned up properly to hide his metal torso. They slept together every night at the risk of Irina or another maid barging in on them and discovering them—and Taejoon was starting to not fear getting caught anymore.

Because everything was falling into place. He had gotten a message from Mystik only a week after he sent her that coded email; sitting at Octavio’s computer, checking his mail mindlessly while the other man pressed against his back, kissing up his metal neck and mouthing at his jaw, whining for him to get into bed and take care of him. He squinted when he noticed the new message in his inbox, addressed to someone that was not him, and opened it up, taking in its contents.

_Xiaolu,_

_Got a new shipment of kids coming in, so the supply list this time is gonna be a little longer. Don’t forget the toothpaste like you did last time. Meet my driver at the usual spot._

_Na shledanou,_

_Mystik_

Following it was a list of items and the amount needed, plus the price of each item and suggested alternatives if they didn’t have that item in stock. It appeared to be a standard grocery list—an extensive one, sure, but anyone would be able to piece together that she ran an orphanage. But Taejoon knew the truth. His trained eyes scanned over every letter and number combination, deciphering the hidden meaning behind the list.

Years ago, he would have needed to write it all down to truly make sense of it, but he had mastered the ability to read Mystik’s complicated code shortly before his death, and he was glad to know that that skill hadn’t been lost even after dying.

_04/30. 9:00 PM GNT. qw70_1. Stay safe._

April thirtieth, nine o’clock Gaea Northern Time (7:00 AM for Taejoon), and a private chatroom code. The chat client they used could detect whenever a link was sent and who clicked on it, but it didn’t work if the user manually typed the code into the web address. It would be the most private talk they could have, away from the prying eyes of the Syndicate.

“Pay attention to me,” Octavio said, annoyed that Taejoon hadn’t responded to his kissing in quite some time. “It’s like I’m macking on a robot.”

“Ha, ha,” Taejoon said sarcastically.

“What’re you looking at?” Octavio squinted at the computer screen. “Who the _fuck_ needs thirty boxes of cereal? Wait, now _I_ want cereal.”

“It’s my old caretaker,” Taejoon mumbled, writing the code down lest he forget it. “She wants to talk.”

“Oh yeah? What else did she have to say?”

“That was it.”

“Boring.”

“I’m sorry, did you expect anything else?”

“I just thought that being in a forbidden romance with a cyborg from a different planet would be, like, way more exciting.”

Taejoon pushed away from the computer, giving Octavio a look. “Are you only into me because it’s ‘interesting’?”

Octavio smirked, sitting back on his hands. He was only wearing underwear, having been trying to get Taejoon’s attention by stripping (with little success), spreading his legs wide in an invitation. “I dunno, dude...you’re not being very _interesting_ right now.”

Having deciphered the message for all it was worth, Taejoon turned the computer off and clambered on top of Octavio, much to the other’s delight, pulling him down for yet another lip-bruising kiss that was becoming the norm for him.

It was not the first time Taejoon had asked that question. He mostly asked it to himself, in private make-out sessions in places where they risked being caught. Pressed to the wall, sliding down so he was practically sitting on Octavio’s knee stuck between his legs, kissing feverishly and wondering if the other man really saw him as a person. If he was a human with feelings to be respected, or an exciting little adventure for the bored heir of Silva Pharmaceuticals.

He wouldn’t be surprised if it was a mixture of both—Octavio assured him that he was real, that he felt real, but he still felt the way the other’s heart beat in his chest whenever a maid got too close to their hiding spot, didn’t miss the way Octavio ran his fingers along the metal components of Taejoon’s being like he had with that one guy’s hand weeks ago.

He didn’t just question Octavio’s interest in Taejoon, but his own interest in Octavio. Did he feel anything towards him in the romantic sense, or was it simply craving for human contact? Did the dregs of his programming twist his protectiveness into something more romantic, or was there real interest buried in there somewhere?

What was there to even be interested in? Octavio Silva was a rich spoiled brat who had streaks of cruelty buried inside of him, hidden under a protective layer of teenage-esque rebellion and a derisive attitude towards those around him.

But Octavio Silva was also explosive, excitable, and easy. Difficult at first glance, but once you know what got him going, it was easy for him to launch into long-winded and barely comprehensible rants about the things he liked. He pretended to be stupider than he actually was because it was just _easy_ and more fun to disregard consequences, and it was this combination of traits that lead to this relationship with Taejoon, and possibly the reason that he hadn’t yet told others of his true nature. It would be infinitely more interesting, more excitable, to see how long they could get away with it rather than turning him in.

So maybe it didn’t matter if Octavio wasn’t interested in Taejoon Park, but rather the concept of him. The fear that they could be caught doing something they weren’t supposed to, the rush it brought Octavio, was one of the only reasons his identity hadn’t been revealed. So he would play this little game, and he would hate himself for enjoying it, and hate himself even more every time he thought that maybe Octavio really did care for him, underneath it all.

Because even if he questioned it, he _did_ want Octavio, in every sense of the word—wanted him to open up emotionally, wanted him to be safe, wanted to be touched by him and touch him back because even if he didn't necessarily feel sexual gratification from it, Octavio did, so it was all that mattered.

April thirtieth was two weeks away, so he spent that time doing the usual bodyguard stuff. He adhered to the rest of the staff’s orders, but often with a barely-restrained smirk, knowing that Octavio was waiting behind those doors to kiss him until he was out of breath.

Time moved like molasses in those two weeks, but not in a necessarily bad way. He and Octavio spent so much time together now, kissing one another and talking, that it almost felt like he lived in a tiny bubble where nothing mattered. A slow eternity in the arms of his charge, but an enjoyable one at that. All chores were completed with the goal of going into Octavio's room late at night to make him writhe on his fingers or tongue once again, and the same applied to Octavio, who was a little more docile around his father if only so he could escape to his room faster and mouth at Taejoon's neck.

The day before he and Mystik's virtual meeting, that bubble seemed to pop.

Octavio was on top of him while they laid on a couch, grinding against his hips with grunts that were really fucking loud for what was supposed to be a secret moment. Taejoon had slipped his hand past the hem of the other's shorts, knowing he had at least an hour until he was called upon, an hour to make Octavio see stars—when the other man suddenly sat up, like he had just thought of something.

“I wanna go out,” Octavio announced.

“What?” Taejoon panted beneath him, because even if he couldn’t feel it like he would have in his previous body, he definitely felt _something._ “Like—like right now?”

“Yeah, right now.” Octavio rolled off of him, leaving Taejoon with the robot equivalent of blue balls. “Like a date!”

Which was how Taejoon found himself sitting in a high-end department store in the city, only a couple of blocks down from that night club they’d gone to forever ago. His fingers tapped against his thigh nervously as he kept one part of himself tuned into the security system, on the lookout for anyone or anything dangerous.

Octavio had disappeared with the promise that he would come back, but Taejoon was able to find him on the security cameras when he closed his eyes and accessed the surveillance port. He was yanking clothes off of shelves with little disregard to those around him, almost accidentally knocking a woman and her baby’s stroller over.

It wasn’t too much of a date, he thought to himself. He figured dates would be, like, outings to a restaurant, or an amusement park, or the movie theater. Not shopping in a store full of rich people doing rich people things, but maybe this was a rich people sort of date. He watched a man pick up a neatly packaged box of pure silk tissues priced at nearly a hundred dollars. _What the fuck._

“Okay, I’m back,” he heard Octavio’s voice, and turned to see a large pile of clothes with two short legs sticking out from underneath. “C’mon, I don’t have all day.”

“What are you doing?” Taejoon asked, bemused as Octavio led him to the dressing room, which was extremely fucking nice. Wall-length vanity mirrors lined the area, the carpet made of red velvet that was cleaned so regularly that there was almost a polished quality to it. There were two dressing rooms separated by a heavy black silk curtain, and a male and female porcelain mannequin were positioned outside of them to model clothes.

He felt _so_ out of place in the same suit jacket and pants he’d been wearing for the past several months, and it seemed that Octavio shared the same sentiment.

“Alright. Try all of this on,” he said, and shoved the pile of clothes into Taejoon’s arms. A lesser man, one not made of metal, would have stumbled under the weight.

“... _Why?_ ” 

“You’ve been wearing that thing for like, ever! I get bored just looking at you!” Octavio said, before pushing Taejoon into one of the dressing rooms. “And dressing up is fun.”

“You _hate_ dressing up.”

“Yeah, but I like judging people.”

He was so _insufferable._

But when was the last time he had done something like this? It had been well before the whole incident—maybe the day he had gone for his very first job interview, trying on the numerous pairs of slacks Mila had thrown over his shoulder in the thrift store down the corner from their old orphanage. He guessed that if this was something Octavio wanted to do, he would do it.

Picking up a tie-dye t-shirt that was somehow priced at roughly four hundred dollars, he snubbed his nose and folded it in half, setting it aside. Yeah, no, he still had standards.

Half of the clothes that he picked up wouldn’t even fit him—it seemed that Octavio had guesstimated his size, which meant that a lot of the pants were too short and a lot of the shirts were too small. He appeared thin, yes, but these clothes would be a better fit on Octavio than him—in fact, most of this stuff seemed like things Octavio would wear, further proven when he found a crop-top in the pile with a skull on it. 

And speak of the devil, Octavio yanked the curtain open, not at all caring that Taejoon was naked. Which, to be fair, there wasn’t anything too scandalous about him being naked.

“What’s taking so long?” His charge complained, before eyeing the crop-top in his hands, which he was in the process of folding. “Hey, try it on, I wanna see!”

With a sigh, Taejoon decided to humor the other, and slid it over his head. It was his size, so it wasn’t too uncomfortable, but he also definitely wasn’t a crop-top kind of guy, especially considering the fact that his stomach was just sleek chrome and bronze.

“Oh, wow,” Octavio laughed, snapping a picture of him on his phone. “It’s so ugly. Now hurry up!”

“Thanks,” Taejoon snorted, before snatching the other’s phone from his hand and ignoring his indignant yelp. “Delete this, idiot, or someone might see it and ask why you’re getting your android servant dressed up.”

Octavio rolled his eyes but took his phone when Taejoon handed it back to him, quickly deleting the photo with a ‘there, you happy now?’ He stalked away, suddenly in a bad mood, and Taejoon felt a little bad, but it was a necessary precaution to take. Everything was starting to fall into place for him: he didn’t want to screw it all up with one careless mistake.

Taejoon picked out one outfit from the large pile of clothes given to him—a green jacket with half-sleeves, a plain white t-shirt, and cuffed jeans. He stepped out to let Octavio have a look, but he wasn’t waiting outside. Frowning, Taejoon glanced at one of the vanity mirrors, and stilled at what he saw. Save for the fact that his arms were clearly inhuman, he looked...normal. At first glance, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell that he wasn’t a real person, not until you looked closer and noticed the finer details, like the gold flecks in his eyes and the too-smooth skin of his neck that wasn’t actually skin at all. 

But the sudden change in his appearance felt like a shock to his system. The fact of the matter was, the way he looked _hadn't_ changed this whole time, so seeing himself in the mirror was like looking at a whole new person, and he wanted Octavio to see him like this too.

Tapping into the security system, he saw that the other was upstairs, browsing a set of jumpsuits. He stepped back into the dressing room and quickly changed into his normal clothes, deciding that he would lie to Octavio and say he had tried on all of them but only found a couple he liked. He could model for him later.

He then left the dressing area so he could walk upstairs with his new outfit folded over his arm, but got stopped by a burly security guard, who had been giving him weird looks earlier while he had waited for Octavio to come back.

“Hey,” the man said, putting his hand on Taejoon’s shoulder harshly and practically yanking him backwards. “You have to _pay_ for that.”

“I’m just going upstairs,” Taejoon replied as flatly and coolly as possible, but the man sneered.

“Don’t think I don’t know about the scam you machines are used for. I’m tired of getting in trouble because of your kind—hand ‘em over, now.”

“I’m going to buy them,” Taejoon said forcefully, taking one step up the stairs. He had no idea what this man was getting at, but he clearly didn't care for what Taejoon had to say. “I’m with my—”

The security officer suddenly lunged at him, and not wanting to get into a fight, Taejoon started rapidly ascending the stairs, trying to locate Octavio so he could clear up this little misunderstanding and either pay, or get them the hell out of here. He located the other quickly, tugging a tanned aviator suit from its hanger, and he looked up in alarm as Taejoon made his way towards him without pause.

“They think I’m trying to steal,” he said quietly, not wanting to draw attention to them because the last fucking thing he wanted was for the Syndicate to catch wind that a bot was misbehaving in Psamathe.

“Who thinks that? The security?” Octavio asked, side-stepping him to see officer stumbling up the stairs, red-faced and out of breath. Octavio stepped around Taejoon to approach him, saying dismissively, “Yo, he didn’t do anythi—”

The officer shoved Octavio out of the way violently without listening to him—Octavio was already on the smaller side, but the security guard was taller than even Taejoon and twice as wide, so his charge went crashing to the ground with a shout, one ankle hitting a table that was displaying a wide array of expensive perfumes and colognes, causing it to collapse. It was the last thing Taejoon saw before his vision went red.

The next thing he knew, he was holding the security officer by his throat against the ground, knee pinned to his chest while a lady in a tan pantsuit and a manager badge pinned to her chest pleaded with him to stop. He had clearly been doing this for a while—the man's face was turning a deep shade of purple as he sputtered beneath Taejoon's vice-like grip.

“Hey, lady, he’s my bodyguard,” he heard Octavio drawl, and his whole body seemed to relax instantly because _Octavio was okay._ “It's not his fault. This whole thing wouldn’t have happened if he didn’t fucking push me.”

“Can’t you get him to stop?” She pleaded.

“Only if he thinks I’m not in any danger," Octavio said, sounding like he was having way too much fun with the situation. Taejoon let up on the security guard’s throat, eyes wide and having trouble comprehending his own actions.

He had no idea why he had reacted so violently, and had no memory of doing so in the first place. He didn’t know why he had lunged forward to protect Octavio when he didn’t _need to_ anymore, and he fucking hoped that they wouldn’t contact the authorities because the last thing he needed was for the Syndicate to open up an investigation on him.

He thought of all the footage this department store must have of him standing around, tapping his foot impatiently or pacing back and forth, far too human for a programmed servant, and he almost felt like he was breaking out in a cold sweat at the mere thought. He got to his feet, blank-faced while the manager helped the groaning security officer to his feet. Octavio shot him a look, smiling, which Taejoon didn’t return because he was too busy panicking.

“I’ve decided that I won’t press charges,” Octavio said conversationally, and the security guard yelped,

“ _You_ press charges against _me_?”

“You shoved me!” Octavio said, jabbing his finger harshly, not at all perturbed by the fact that the man was a good foot taller than him. “You came up the stairs, pushed me to the ground, and injured me!”

He stuck his foot out, showcasing a small bruise on his ankle, which Taejoon honestly didn’t think much of, but the manager balked at the sight. She clearly feared the type of hell rich kids could raise, even with an injury as small as that, and she bowed to Octavio apologetically.

“I’m so sorry. It was a mistake. Please, allow me to give you a discount on your items.”

“But what about the bot?” The security guard sputtered, raising his hand up to gesture to the bruises on his neck in the clear shape of fingerprints. “What about—”

“He’s my bodyguard,” Octavio cut him off, lips turning up at the corners, as if daring the other to rebuke him. “He was defending me. You don’t have a case here, amigo.”

Octavio was, decidedly, really fucking scary, but Taejoon felt relief as the officer dropped the matter, shuffling away with his head down. The manager personally rang up their items, letting out another stream of apologies, which Octavio accepted gracefully, promising that he wouldn’t press charges—if they, in return, also didn’t press charges.

“Of course,” she said, shaking her head. “It was all just a misunderstanding, there’s no need to contact the authorities...”

The two of them left the department store, Taejoon carrying their bags, and with a sigh Octavio stretched his arms above his head, looking out at the street boredly. “I fucking hate places like these.”

Taejoon hummed in acknowledgement, closing his eyes as he accessed the security system once again. It was one of the handy things about still being connected to the network—he maneuvered past the safety checkpoints and questions, switching the surveillance cameras offline.

“Hey, what’re you doing?”

Taejoon didn’t respond, concentrating. If he could turn the surveillance cameras off, he could also, feasibly, delete footage...Once they had been turned off, the footage of the day automatically saved as a file with the date encrypted inside, and another file was copied onto a different computer. He couldn’t outright delete those files, but he _was_ able to corrupt them—it took him a minute, Octavio yanking at his hand and trying to get him to move from his motionless state, but he didn’t budge.

There. If the store changed their minds and did decide to press charges, or at least wanted to check today’s security footage to get a better look at the thing that had assaulted them...they wouldn’t be able to. It was laughably easy, but despite this, he still felt paranoid.

“Earth to Tae...” Octavio was saying when he opened his eyes, and he turned to look at the other, half-wanting to suggest they go home because of his nerves, but Octavio was smiling wide at him, prettily and dimpled. “Let’s grab lunch.”

So Taejoon agreed, and they walked hand in hand to some upscale restaurant that he never would have been able to afford in his past life. They got a table in a corner, and Taejoon noticed that it didn’t really seem like the type of place Octavio would like going to, but it was quiet at least, and not too many people were inside, so he was able to calm down. He wondered if Octavio was perceptive enough to see how bothered he had been, or if maybe he really did just like this place.

“So...” The other man said, stirring his orange juice with his straw. He fixed Taejoon with a look, head cocked to the side, before asking, “What was that all about?”

“What?” Taejoon asked, having zoned out for the past minute or so. He moved his hands from the table to his lap, fiddling with his fingers while he sensed Octavio nudging his legs lightly with his foot.

“At the department store! Why’d you go all...I dunno, gung-ho on that guy?” Octavio made a choking motion, hands clawing at the air. “You chokeslammed him, dude.”

Taejoon looked out the window, down at the pedestrians bustling by. They were on the high-end part of the city, so most of the people he saw looked rich and important. Pearls and diamond earrings, the sleekest technology money could afford, real fur shawls and silken suits. He had accepted that he would always feel permanently out of place while in this new body, but seeing them seemed to make it worse, like an amp being plugged into a bass.

Their waitress brought over two cups of soup, apparently free, before leaving them alone, descending down a twisting oaken staircase out of their sight. He belonged down there with her—not here, across from Octavio and looking down at this cup of fine soup he probably couldn’t even eat.

...Not that he had tried eating yet.

Pushing the soup away from him, Taejoon finally said, “I don’t know why.”

Octavio scoffed. “Lame.”

“I mean...” He dropped his voice low, so low that Octavio had to lean forward to hear him. “I disabled all my programming that says I’m obligated to care about you.”

He instantly knew that was a really fucking awful way to put it when Octavio’s expression turned cold, picking up the cup of soup and tilting his head back to drain it instead of using his spoon. Taejoon stammered a little, trying to correct himself.

“I meant that I don’t have to protect you anymore or feel—feel like I _have_ to fight for you, I _do_ care about you, I just—”

“Whatever,” Octavio said, sour. 

“Octavio, seriously,” Taejoon said, crossing his arms over the table. “I do care about you. I just—I said it wrong, okay?”

He didn’t know why he felt the need to defend himself from the notion that he didn’t care about Octavio—sure, they had their...thing going on, but it wasn’t like, serious. They weren’t in love. He wasn’t even sure he could experience it—maybe just a pale imitation, a half-obsession born out of the leftovers of his programming. He had nothing in his life right now except for Octavio, and because of it, he was the source of nearly all of his emotions, of most of his actions. He needed him to understand that he did care about him—perhaps just not in the conventional way.

But he didn’t know how to word it, so he sat in silence while Octavio ordered lunch for himself, waving the waitress away when she smiled at Taejoon and asked for his order. Afterwards, Octavio called for Delilah while waiting on the curb next to Taejoon, who had extended his hand as a peace offering as they waited, but he went ignored.

This continued until they got home and he followed Octavio up the stairs to his room, but the door was slammed shut in his face, leaving him at the mercy of the rest of the household. With a sigh, Taejoon set the shopping bags outside of his door gently, before stalking away, planning on sitting outside in the sun so Irina couldn’t find him and make him do chores.

He thought about it some more as he basked in the sunlight, sitting criss-crossed on the patio. Was his programming making a return? He would have to look over that hard-drive once again to see if any of his changes had been reverted, but he had a feeling that that wasn’t the case. He didn’t feel the harsh tugs of any of his other previous programming—he was able to do what he wanted, when he wanted, and was able to walk in forbidden areas of the house without care. 

He was aware that some of it lingered, primarily the code that prevented him from actively hurting Octavio and the occasional prompt on what to say and do, but it didn't _force_ him to do things, didn't blindly take control of him like it had earlier.

He could maybe chalk it up to a brief complication within the data that made him up, but he wondered if it was all because of the feelings he held towards Octavio now. It wasn’t even just that he felt prompted to attack the security guard because he had hurt him—he had done it blindly, unthinkingly, and on base instinct without a second thought. 

Protecting Octavio had been his sole purpose for the few months of his new life, and he wondered if his complicated emotions towards that lent himself to falling prey to the programming still inside of him, dormant and waiting to be activated once again.

He grit his teeth before getting to his feet, brushing the dirt from his black slacks, which really looked frayed and old upon closer inspection from being worn every day. He didn't need to worry about it too much, he told himself. Mystik would be able to help him figure it all out.

He went back inside the house, finding that Octavio’s door had been left ajar, and stepped inside his room before closing the door behind him. He found that the clothes Octavio had bought him had been dropped into the trash can, but they were still in the shopping bag, so they were fine. He took the bag out and set it aside carefully, cleaning the room up a little bit as he went to take his mind off of things.

There was only a couple more hours left until he could talk to his former caretaker—if he had a heart, it would be threatening to beat out of his chest right now.

Octavio didn’t return to his room that night, but Taejoon wasn’t too worried. He padded out into the living room at midnight to find the other asleep on the couch, some B-grade horror movie playing on the huge flatscreen before him. Several cans of soda littered the floor around him, telling Taejoon that he had been there for quite a while, and he was drooling.

Glancing around to make sure nobody was watching, Taejoon bent over and adjusted the blanket arranged haphazardly on his body, tucking it into his sides so it wouldn’t fall off, and adjusted the pillow so it wouldn’t hurt his neck. He hesitated, fingers hovering over the other's cheek, before he cupped his face gently and kissed his forehead in what was decidedly an embarrassing moment. He still felt so out of place when giving and receiving intimacy, but it made him feel nice inside to kiss Octavio, even if for just a second.

He left the living room quickly after that, lest anyone walk in and see him leaning over his...lover? Partner? Boyfriend? Fuckbuddy?

Labels were difficult. Luckily, he had seven hours to think about it.

Those seven hours were some of the longest that Taejoon had ever experienced in his life. He paced Octavio’s room back and forth, stopping every now and then to look through his things, like the stack of photos he had stuffed in his desk draw that showcased pictures of him as a child with a variety of other children—the most consistent of them being a girl with pink buns; Ajay Che. He didn’t look at them for too long, as they were all pictures of Octavio pre-transition and he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to see him like that.

He crept silently out about an hour before their meeting and plugged two separate motion-sensor lights equipped with tiny cameras at opposite ends of the hallway. He wouldn’t be able to lock the door—Irina might try opening it, find she wasn't able to, and would walk out into the living room where she would discover Octavio and start to piece together the fact that something was going on in Octavio’s room. 

They were technically security cameras, but it would take far too long for him to connect them to the house’s security network, therefore enabling him to just automatically sense when one of the sensors was triggered, so he unplugged Octavio’s tablet from its charging port and connected the cameras to its Bluetooth. It would have to do for now.

Taejoon found Octavio’s headset and plugged it into his PC, loading up the web client and feeling anxious once again. He was unsure if Mystik wanted to risk the video chat function or not, but he would have to wait and see. He wasn't sure he wanted to, though—he might start crying at the mere sight of her.

An agonizing few minutes passed, and then, at seven o’clock on the dot, a little box appeared in the chatroom.

 **_PBVW_LN_ ** _has entered the client._

 **_PBVW_LN:_ ** WMS?

His breathing stuttered a bit as he read that sequence of letters, the code they had given one another to verify their identities years ago.

 **_anonymous:_ ** 0009.

 **_anonymous:_ ** Mila?

 **_PBVW_LN_ **: 0012.

Not that he expected their chat to be compromised, but he felt relief at seeing that it was, indeed, Mystik. His eyes started to water, just a little—even before this whole thing had happened, he hadn’t seen her in a while, and maybe that had been a good thing; in his adult years, she really only ever showed up to drag him out of trouble. He had been doing good for himself right until the prediction algorithm happened, but now, it seemed like she was showing up to save him again.

 **_PBVW_LN_ **: we have 45 minutes.

 **_PBVW_LN:_ ** status?

 **_anonymous:_ ** Safe. For now.

 **_PBVW_LN:_ ** are you still within your current situation?

 **_anonymous:_ ** Yes.

 **_PBVW_LN:_ **elaborate.

How...would he even _begin_ to describe the current situation with Octavio?

 _I messaged you and told you that I was alive and pretending to be the bodyguard for some rich heir, except now we’re fucking and also he’s mad at me_. His fingers hovered over the keyboard as he tried to formulate a response, but he had evidently taken too long. A new box popped up in the client:

**_PBVW_LN IS REQUESTING VIDEO CHAT._ **

Taejoon fumbled to slide the headset over his ears, turning the tablet on so even if he couldn’t hear the security notification, the screen would still light up if anyone came close to Octavio's room. He clicked accept on the request box, and a window opened, showing him Mystik for the first time in a year.

She was dressed for the night in a robe and comfortable pajamas, her hair pulled back in a gray bun so tightly that it must hurt her scalp, yet she showed no visible discomfort. She was stroking a cat in her lap—a new one, not one he recognized—and when she saw him she pursed her lips in a judgmental manner, scanning his face.

His fingers tapped restlessly against the desk as he tried to think of what to say to her, but she spoke first.

“Well, it’s not your worst haircut,” she remarked, before turning and allowing the cat to leap down from her lap and canter away.

“I don’t think it grows,” he said quietly through half a laugh, and the next thing he knew, he was crying into his hands. 

He’d been doing a lot of that recently, it seemed. Crying, mostly for inane reasons like feeling human and having his name said out loud. Though this time he supposed the reason for crying was justified—he thought he’d never see her ever again, not with how uncertain his future seemed, and he had had so many things he regretted never telling her before he disappeared—so many arguments they never settled and fights he never apologized for. He felt horrible.

“Shh, there there,” Mystik cooed, as if speaking to a child, before her voice dropped back into its normal tone. “We don’t have enough time for you to cry, son. I need you to tell me everything, _everything_ that’s happened to you, and I’ll do my damn best to get you back.”

He tried biting back his sobs, but it felt so much easier to cry in front of her than it had been in front of Octavio, perhaps because she'd seen him cry so many times before. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down, before launching into the full story.

It was easier to explain what had happened to him after having already done so for Octavio—easier to piece his words together, even if he was sniffling through them like a child who’d lost their mother at the grocery store.

Twice he stopped dead silent, paranoid that he had heard someone behind him, but the motion sensors had yet to go off, so he resumed, quickly relaying as much information as he could, including the fact that Octavio was aware that he was human. Of course, he left out some of the... _other_ stuff, but he felt confident that he had explained it as best he could

Mystik nodded along to his words, blue eyes intense, as if trying to see right through him. Even through a screen her expression was fierce, something he had always liked having on his side as a child. Other kids had often been scared of her icy gaze and he wished, childishly, that she could come to Psamathe and stare Hammond down herself.

When he finished speaking, she reached over, out of view of the camera, before settling back down, holding up a hard-drive for him to see.

“Son, I need you to plug that chip in,” she said, and inserted the drive into her own computer. “I’m going to make a copy and take a closer look at it. I might be able to make you a new drive to disconnect you from Hammond entirely, but it’s going to take a couple of weeks.”

“Right,” Taejoon said, and reached for where he had stashed it beneath Octavio’s bed. They only had about fifteen minutes left, a half hour till eight, so he plugged it in quickly, allowing the computer to access its contents.

He watched her fingers fly over the keyboard expertly, before taking in her face. It seemed to be more lined than when he had last seen her, dark bags beneath her eyes and a hard press to her lips that made him wonder just how much his and Mila’s disappearance had affected her. She was never too physically affectionate, but he had a feeling that if he was there with her, she would have pulled him into a rib-cracking hug.

“How is everything?” He asked quietly, and she smiled a little, not looking at him as she continued typing.

“As fine as it’ll ever be. Patricia got adopted about a month ago, and she seems happy, but it’s a shame I don’t have my best decrypter at my side anymore.”

Taejoon opened his mouth to say something, maybe ask if any of her other kids had gotten taken in yet, when the tablet screen lit up, and his head jerked towards it, already rising out of his seat. He pulled the headset off, relieved that it was just Octavio, and strode towards the door to get to it before the other could, but he was too late—Octavio pushed it open, looking groggy and holding a pillow to his chest.

“Taejoon?” He yawned, and Taejoon quickly shut the door behind him, paranoid that someone would glimpse Mystik on Octavio's screen from outside. “Have you been in here all night?”

“Yes,” Taejoon said quickly, noticing that she had risen from her seat, one hand stretched out, as if prepared to turn her computer off at any moment. She had seen him leave, and thought there might be a problem, but before he could say anything to her about it being safe, Octavio got his attention by tugging sheepishly at his suit jacket.

“I know what you meant earlier," he said awkwardly, like he wasn't quite sure what to say. "I was just...fuck, I dunno. I was already mad, but I’m not anymore. I'm s...uhm...s-sorry."

Ah...he was apologizing? That was a relief—he wasn’t sure how long he would have been able to handle this cold anger from the only person on this planet he considered his ally, and...he was so _cute_ about it.

Taejoon cupped his face, which he had learned over these past few days that the other man liked, and said, "It's alright. I didn't mean to say it like that earlier. I _do_ care about you."

"I know." Just like that, Octavio went from shy and cute to annoying and smug, his default state. "Why wouldn't you?"

He tossed his pillow aside, and before Taejoon could say anything more, was wrapping his arms around his neck, tugging Taejoon down to kiss him. _Oh, okay._

He placed his hands on Octavio’s waist, one part of him wanting to get him to stop so he could tell him that he was on call with Mystik, and the other part of him wanting to keep this up for a few seconds longer. He didn’t want to upset him again by pulling away too early and making him feel unimportant, but this was an urgent meeting with his caretaker, and he needed to return to her before she left. 

Taejoon pulled away, trying to tug out of Octavio’s grip to return to the computer, but Octavio’s hands slid down to Taejoon’s hips and pulled them close to his, pressing kisses into Taejoon's jaw now. Taejoon raised both hands to cup Octavio’s face, getting him to stop, before kissing him once on the mouth as an apology and saying, “ _Octavio._ I’m on a call.”

“You sound like my dad,” Octavio said, lips puckered a little from the way Taejoon was holding his face.

“With Mystik,” Taejoon stressed, and Octavio looked over at his computer, wide-eyed. Taejoon looked over too, and wanted to die. Mystik was staring at them both, one eyebrow arched judgmentally, and once again stroking one of her cats. Okay. Well. He had not planned on telling her the _details_ of he and Octavio's relationship, but it seemed like he would have to.

Octavio took a step backwards from him and sat on his bed with a huff, leaving Taejoon free to return to his desk and slide the headset back on. He face was flushed red, and it only worsened when Mystik said coolly,

“You neglected to tell me that you were sleeping with your boss.”

“He’s not my boss,” Taejoon snapped back, and Mystik smirked, having phrased it that way just to tick him off. “He’s just—”

“Your boyfriend?” Octavio said next to his ear, and Taejoon sighed. “Tell your mom I said hi.”

“She’s not my mom,” Taejoon said, and Mystik laughed. “We have five minutes, Mystik, please—”

“It’s alright, son, I’ve almost got it all copied over.” She adjusted her robe a little, smile disappearing and face returning to its usual businesslike expression. “Depending on the contents of the drive, I might need you to do some digging for me. There’s a large lab on Psamathe owned by Hammond—you might need to break in and get some blueprints, but I’m not sure yet. I’ll keep you updated on any new meeting times. Let’s keep this format, shall we?”

“Works for me,” Taejoon mumbled, turning his head a little to see Octavio splayed out on his bed. “And this...thing, I—”

“I don’t need an explanation,” Mystik cut him off, and he snapped his mouth shut. “Just don’t do anything stupid, Park. I thought I lost two kids, but you’re alive. Don’t make me mourn you again.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said, feeling like a child who had just been scolded. Mystik smiled at him warmly, before the video feed cut, and he was alone with Octavio. He sighed, taking the headset off, before logging out of everything and wiping its history. He looked over at Octavio, who was staring back at him, eyes narrowed. “What?”

“You didn’t tell her about me!” He said petulantly, and Taejoon huffed.

“I didn’t know how to explain it,” he said in defense of himself before getting up from the desk chair and settling down on the other man’s bed. “She _is_ basically my mother, it’s embarrassing to tell her stuff like that."

“Excuses,” Octavio said, before gripping the front of his suit jacket and pulling him down to lay with him. Taejoon curled up on his side as Octavio ran his fingers over his skin like he had several weeks ago, playing with his hair and jacket and hands. Taejoon closed his eyes, content to let the other do whatever he wanted with him.

He felt happier than he had in months—Mystik knew he was alive, was going to work to give him his own absolute free will, he was being treated like a human around the person who mattered most to him right now, and that same person was touching him gently, intimately.

It was an oversimplified version of events, but he felt content after seeing Mystik. It was like his tears had temporarily flushed most of the negative, pessimistic feelings out of him, and all that was left was hope and a longing for the man across from him.

“Guess I owe you for earlier today,” Octavio sighed, as if reading his mind, before swinging one of his legs over Taejoon’s waist and sitting above him on his lap. Taejoon rested his hands on the other’s thighs, imagining that he could feel the warmth and tense muscle there as Octavio cracked his neck. “For not finishing what we started.”

“I’m sorry,” Taejoon mumbled, because even if Octavio had said he forgave him for his earlier wording, it was still bothering him. “For what I said earlier. You _do_ matter to me, I just-"

“I’m not good with feelings, so shut up,” Octavio cut him off, leaning over him and slowly starting to grind his hips down on Taejoon’s. “Let’s just make out and call it even, okay?”

Taejoon let out a short breath, amused and exasperated, but he supposed that was what he had signed up for. He had made the decision to initiate this relationship when given the choice, after all. “Okay.”

Octavio kissed him as if they hadn’t kissed one another in months—desperate and rough, and Taejoon cupped his face again to force him to slow down. He wanted to _really_ kiss him, slowly and warmly, feel his breath against his face and his lips against his, even if it wasn't the other's preferred pace. 

Octavio whined into the kiss, but complied with his slow movements, even if there was still lingering impatience in it all. He ran his hand through Taejoon's hair, and he hummed contently, returning the favor and tucking a few stray strands behind Octavio's ear so they wouldn't get in his face.

He rolled his hips upwards once and Octavio took the hint, grinding down on him once again, gasping and groaning in ways that made Taejoon feel the secondhand pleasure. Unable to feel anything himself, it was most enjoyable to see Octavio come undone on top of him, and he moved his hands from cupping Octavio’s face to wrapping them around his neck, keeping him still to slip his tongue inside his mouth while Octavio rode his thigh fervently.

Soon, the whole house would be waking up, but Taejoon almost didn’t mind. Everything was falling into place; everything would be _fine_. He would soon get full autonomy and agency over himself, and go home, and maybe bring Octavio along with him—if he really cared for him, and it wasn’t the shackles of his programming linking all of his feelings intrinsically to the wellbeing of Octavio Silva.

But he was sure he really felt _something_ for him, enough to make him blindly lash out at someone who had hurt him, enough to feel terrible when he thought the other was angry with him. He didn't think he loved Octavio—that was too human of an emotion for someone that wasn't one—but he _did_ care for him. A lot.

He heard a distant noise, but didn't care in this hazy and warm stupor Octavio was drowning him in. Just cared that he was kissing Octavio slowly, that the other was whining while riding his lap and he could draw those noises out of him again and again and _aga_ —

Octavio's bedroom door banged open and the room flooded with light. The sun shining through the windows in the hallway bathed them in a golden glow as Octavio himself pulled away from Taejoon too late, hips stuttering to a stop against his lap as they both turned to look at Irina, who was standing there, mouth opened wide in shock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI EVERYONE....sorry for making yall wait so long!! imma be real im starting to experience burnout because im one of the only fic writers for cryptane and im starting to get sick of reading my own stuff so i took a little break from fanfic stuff. im back tho!!
> 
> pls dont be afraid to drop a review!! they rly motivate me especially when the going gets tough :,)
> 
> stay safe out there!!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws for this chapter: past child neglect/abuse, and the implication that crypto cannot consent to sex (he can, this is just how someone views him)
> 
> enjoy!!

The worst thing that Taejoon had ever done in his previous life was steal five thousand dollars worth of jewelry from one of his foster homes.

It was during the transition period of going from the foster care system and back into Mystik’s orphanage—one more family was willing to give him and Mila a chance, and it was their last one before they were to be abandoned by their drained social worker for good.

He still remembered the family's names: the father had been David, and the mother Elizabeth. They had two twin sons, Ezekiel and Abraham, who both had their own rooms while he and Mila were squeezed into one room with bunk beds, which he didn’t mind, because they had always been together anyway.

They were only allowed to eat Ezekiel and Abraham’s leftovers under the guise that there wasn't enough food for them all, which Taejoon knew couldn't be true from the sheer amount of leftovers he occasionally glimpsed in the fridge.

They were only allowed out of their room once a day for an hour, an hour spent being poked and prodded by the young twins, and by the end of their first week there, Mila had snuck out of the house twice only to be returned by someone from the neighborhood watch.

Eight days after being dumped into this new home, Taejoon figured out how to pick the lock on their door. He remembered padding down the hallway towards the kitchen, planning to swipe some of the casserole that he and Mila had only been able to eat three bites of before it was all gone, when he had paused outside of David and Elizabeth’s room. The door was cracked open, golden light seeping out into the hall, and he could see Elizabeth in front of her makeup desk, removing a pair of diamond earrings.

 _There's not enough food for all of us,_ he remembered her saying as she handed Mila a plate with a quarter of a sandwich on it. _The system doesn't give us enough money for you._

At that point in his life, he had never felt such severe hatred and rage before. His face had heated up as he watched her daintily take off her necklace, her rings and her bangles, while he and Mila slowly starved to death down the hall. Elizabeth didn't have enough money for food, but she had enough for gold and jewels, apparently.

He wasn't going to take it anymore, wasn't going to quietly plan their escape. They were going to get the _hell_ out of there.

So he and Mila raised hell over the next two days, kicking their walls and trashing the bathroom, shoving the twins around until they burst into tears and ran for their mother. They back-talked their foster parents and did everything in their power to get David on the phone with their social worker and tell her, _We don’t want them anymore._

Their social worker informed them that they needed to pack their things, because they were going back to Mystik’s orphanage, _permanently_ this time. It had been a victory for Taejoon and Mila, who high-fived as soon as they handed the phone back to David.

At this point their door had been unlocked, allowing them to roam the house freely and watch the way Elizabeth’s lip curled up at the sight of them. Mila stole three twenties from her wallet when she wasn't looking and tucked them away into her boot. A half hour before their social worker arrived, Taejoon broke into Elizabeth's jewelry cabinet, picked out a variety of things to sell, and then locked it shut like nothing had happened.

He had gotten away with it for about three hours. The whole time Mystik was signing the paperwork that allowed them permanent residence under her care until they were eighteen, he was sweating, his foot jittering against the floor, hyper-aware of the thousands of dollars worth of diamonds and pearls hidden inside his suitcase.

It was an excruciating wait, as he kept expecting David to call their social worker and tell her that he had stolen from them, but thankfully that didn't happen, and he let out a sigh of relief as Mystik showed their social worker out the door, smiling in a businesslike manner. 

As soon as her sleek black car had driven away, Mystik suddenly rounded on he and Mila, and commanded,

“Open your bags.”

Taejoon knew he had been caught. His hands had trembled as he unzipped his suitcase, fearing the worst-case scenario—Mystik would call that foster family, and after the agony he and Mila had caused them, they would want to call the police on him and then he’d get taken away from Mila and get put in a juvenile detention center and...

“Holy shit,” Mila said in awe, staring at the glittering pile of diamonds in his bag. The three twenties remained safely in her boot, but his spoils were on display for the world to see.

Mystik leaned over to pick up one of the earrings, holding it high so it glinted in the light. Taejoon was sure he was trembling so hard that his teeth were chattering, heart beating so rapidly in his chest that his blood was turning cold. When Mystik looked back down at him he had burst into tears like a child, apologizing repeatedly while Mila laughed at him.

Mystik had then pat him on the back before disappearing with the jewelry, and he was never sure what she did with it, but it had been the worst he’d ever felt in his life. He hadn't gotten in trouble, but that feeling of being _caught,_ red-handed, after everything had been going according to plan was a gut-punch he had hated, and _still_ hated to this day.

Taejoon couldn’t quite experience all the same things now as he did back then, but the overall feeling was the exact same as he stared at the figure of Irina looming in the doorway—pure, unadulterated terror at the fact that he had been discovered beneath the body of the person he was supposed to be looking after.

There was a set of folded clothes in her hands—she had evidently been about to deliver them to Octavio, get him to put them on, but she dropped them at her feet as the three of them stared at one another.

“O-Octavio?” Irina stuttered out, and Taejoon remembered that one night, weeks ago, when Octavio had caught him trying to break into the partygoers’ cars.

Remembered thinking to himself how he could subdue Octavio without anyone hearing his screams, remembered wondering how he could take out Delilah too if she happened to overhear. If he would need to break their bones so they couldn’t escape, hide them somewhere and take off before Hammond and the Syndicate caught wind and shut him down.

Those same thoughts ran through his mind now, but this time, he knew he would have Octavio by his side to cover for him should anyone suspect Taejoon of foul play. That time at the department store had proven that, at least.

However, before he could make any sort of move, before his metal body could tense under the softer one of his charge, Irina kicked the door shut behind her and placed her hands on her hips, brows furrowing and face reddening in anger.

“Your father bought that thing to _protect you,_ ” she said loudly, and Octavio shot Taejoon a wide-eyed look. “Not so you can treat it like a—like a sex toy!”

There was a beat, and then Taejoon felt every inch of skin he had flush darkly.

_Oh my god._

She didn’t suspect Taejoon of being sentient, of having his own free will, didn’t suspect an actual _relationship_ between the two of them—just thought that Octavio was playing around with his servant android, whom she believed to be a poor, helpless little robot who couldn’t say no to him. It was mortifying, and yet somehow, _relieving._

“Um,” Octavio slid off of Taejoon’s lap, and he thought it best to just lay as motionless as possible, still trying to comprehend what was going on. “In my defense, you should’ve knocked?”

“Should have—?!” Her accent got heavier with her incredulity, and it took everything in Taejoon to not burst into terrified laughter. “Is this where it’s been this whole time when it’s supposed to be helping us with housework? Acting as your little-”

She didn’t seem to have words to describe what she was getting at, and spun on the spot, gripping at her hair, clearly harried. Taejoon himself was still trying to calm down, but anxiety was gnawing at his nerves, eating him up from the inside. So his avoidance of the rest of the staff hadn’t gone unnoticed, then. He supposed it would have been impossible for it to, but the fact that Irina had actively been suspecting something was dangerous, even if her guess was far off the mark.

Octavio gave Taejoon a long look, face relaxed, but his eyes were calculating and sharp. It wasn’t a look he had often—Taejoon was far too used to glazed, lidded eyes and bored expressions—before he got to his feet in front of Irina, who was mumbling in Russian to herself.

“You can’t tell anybody,” he said, and she audibly scoffed, shaking her head.

“No. I’m telling your father, Octavio. This is...shameful. It’s not your bot’s intended purpose, and you’re only going to hurt yourself by—”

“I’ll tell father you’re messing around with Delilah, then.”

Taejoon felt like he had been smacked. _What._

Irina sounded the same. “... _Excuse me?_ ”

“You know how he is about relationships between the staff.” Octavio’s voice was rising, and Taejoon sat up slowly and robotically to see that his charge was standing before Irina with his back straight, sounding all too smug to have this information over her. “I have pictures of you two together. Say _goodbye_ to your job.”

Irina’s mouth hung open, staring at the younger man before her, as if she couldn’t believe her ears. It soon snapped shut and she shuffled back and forth on her feet, wringing her hands together as she glanced between Octavio and Taejoon, who had schooled his expression into the default neutral state he wore around everyone else. Finally, she said quietly,

“But I’ve...I’ve been here for years—ever since you were a baby. You wouldn’t just—I’m doing this because I want what’s best for you, Octavio, I—”

“You don’t know what’s best for me,” Octavio cut her off, taking one step forward, and she took one step back. They were both the same exact height, but it almost seemed like he was bearing down on her as he cornered her, fists clenched at his sides. “You all think you know what’s best for me, but you don’t! Nobody cares about what I want! Not father, not you, _certainly_ not Adele— _none of you_ pay attention to me!"

Even Taejoon was surprised by this outburst; Octavio complained a lot, but only in private, and hardly ever to anyone's face. 

"Maybe if you had, you'd have noticed _long_ beforehand." Octavio made a violent gesture that caused the woman to flinch away from him, eyes wide. "So _leave it_ the fuck alone and go back to ignoring me or you’re getting kicked to the curb, Komarova.”

Irina’s face was flushed red, and after a moment of silence, she bowed down to Octavio and quietly left the room, but paused as she was closing the door, and mumbled, “Your father wants to take you to lunch” before snapping it shut.

Several tense seconds passed in silence. Taejoon got to his feet, but for what, he didn’t know. He didn’t know what to say—he was still terrified that Irina would tell Kishou what was going on, and because of it he would suspect Taejoon of not being right, and then report it to Hammond, who would tell the Syndicate, who would—

“Man, I’m hungry,” Octavio said, interrupting Taejoon's downward spiral, before plopping down on his bed with a sigh. “And I’m _still_ horny. Y’know, that’s not the first time she’s walked in on m-”

“Octavio,” Taejoon said, and the other looked at him, head cocked to the side at the brief stutter in his words. “She’s—she won’t-”

“Nah,” Octavio said with a wave of his hand, lips quirked up at the corners. “She won’t. She values this job over _everything,_ for some fucking reason. Don’t worry about it.”

“But the fact that she knows is dangerous,” Taejoon said forcefully, not wanting Octavio to dismiss the whole matter with his usual careless attitude. Taejoon paced back and forth twice before sitting down on the bed next to the other man, leg bouncing involuntarily.

Something else was bothering him too—the callous, borderline cruel way that Octavio had treated Irina, threatening her with blackmail and the prospect of losing her job, the only job she’s ever known. Taejoon didn’t think that Octavio was a mean person, but he certainly was not _nice_ either. There could have been a hundred different ways to handle that, ways that didn’t involve threatening to make her homeless, but it wasn’t like his initial thoughts of violence had been any better.

As if sensing his discomfort, Octavio leaned his head against Taejoon’s shoulder, pouting.

“Look, I did my best, ‘Joon. If she told dad, he would have you _trashed,_ or at least think something else is going on. I’d rather Irina be afraid of revealing the fact that I’m humping you in my spare time than my dad discovering that you’re like, alive, and then you die because of the Syndicate or whatever.”

Despite his anxiety, Taejoon found it within himself to give a short laugh at the wording, crossing his arms over his chest. Right...he supposed that was true, but he still felt afraid, as afraid as he’d been all those years ago when he’d been caught stealing, but this time instead of fearing that he’d be taken away from Mila, he was afraid he’d be taken away from Octavio.

 _...Ah, what are you thinking?_ A little voice inside of him said. _Stop thinking like that._

“You’re thinking too hard,” Octavio echoed, now resting his head in Taejoon’s lap. He laid his cheek against Taejoon’s thigh, staring up at him with a frown as his fingers danced across his abdomen. “Can we finish?”

“Finish what?” Taejoon hummed, drumming against the bed. _Stop thinking about it. Stop thinking about it._

Octavio’s hand slid past the waistband of his boxers, eyes slipping shut. “Use your imagination, smartypants.”

Taejoon looked down at the other, taking in the way his face was scrunched up, brows pinched and lips falling open as he played with himself in Taejoon’s lap, back arching. He didn’t seem to care that they’d been caught, that Taejoon’s life was at risk, that their relationship could be torn apart faster than they could prepare. He didn’t seem to care that Irina was walking around the house right now, perhaps teetering on the edge of telling Kishou the truth or keeping her job and her relationship safe.

Taejoon was not in the mood for what Octavio wanted to do, and Octavio was just going to dismiss all of his anxieties, so he changed the subject and said,

“What about all that stuff you said about being ignored?”

“...Huh?” Octavio asked, pausing what he was doing to stare at Taejoon in confusion.

“You feel ignored,” Taejoon repeated, and the other man stared at him some more before sighing and rolling out of his lap. He went into the bathroom to wash his hands, Taejoon watching silently while his leg continued to bounce uncontrollably, before Octavio returned and sat backwards in his desk chair, resting his arms against the back of it.

“‘Cuz I am,” Octavio finally said, swiveling back and forth a little on the chair. “My dad doesn’t care about me until it’s time to talk business. When I hit sixteen, all my stepmoms stopped pretending to care about me because I was old enough for them to get away with it. None of the staff cares about me, either. They go out of their way to avoid me.”

“Why is that?” 

“Oh, you know. Problem child with severe ADHD that went untreated for most of his life. I’ve also had, like, thirty nannies.” Octavio smiled a little to himself, as if remembering something fondly. “I’ve torn this place apart multiple times, so the less they see of me, the better. But it’s not like I care—I can actually do the things I want when nobody’s giving a shit about me.”

Taejoon turned his body a little towards Octavio, trying to formulate a clear response. He could understand, on some fundamental levels, what the other went through. He’d had his fair share of neglectful, dismissive, sometimes downright abusive foster families, but he’d experienced all of them with at least one person by his side. He and Mila had been bounced from home to home for three years when they were teens, and the time before and after that was spent in Mystik’s orphanage, where she looked after them along with the other dozen kids in her care.

So Taejoon could relate to him, that feeling of being ignored and unwanted, uncared for. It would have been hard for him to fathom growing up—how someone so wealthy and seemingly spoiled could also feel neglected, but after having been with Octavio for months now, it was easier for him to empathize with him and understand him. 

Taejoon decided to relay some of this information to Octavio—the families he’d had and the things he and Mila had gone through, and Octavio actually listened without once looking bored, meeting Taejoon’s eyes the whole time. When he finished speaking, Octavio stood up from his chair and approached him so he could sit down in Taejoon’s lap, instantly causing him to sputter.

“You know,” Octavio said conversationally, as if he wasn’t sitting on Taejoon, and wrapped his arms around his neck. “We’re kinda fucked up.”

“Speak for yourself,” Taejoon said flatly.

Octavio laughed. “But it’s true! Nobody wants us. Well, except maybe that Mystik lady. We can be unwanted together, babe.”

Taejoon spoke without thinking. “I want you.”

Octavio froze in his lap, staring at him with wide eyes and his jaw slack. Taejoon wanted to hide his face from view because he was sure he had an equally as dumb expression on— _god why did he say that_ —but then Octavio giggled nervously, a blush rising in his cheeks. 

“Ha—well—okay,” he said, as if trying his best to not stammer. “I know that, stupid.”

His charge proceeded to bury his face into his neck, as if trying to hide himself, which made Taejoon relax because at least Octavio couldn’t see his face now either. He hesitantly wrapped his arms around Octavio too, imagining that he could truly feel how warm and soft and pliant he was beneath his hands. Imagined that he could feel Octavio’s breath against him, the heat of his face and the hands clinging to his neck.

Wanting to connect with him, wanting to feel him, Taejoon pushed the other’s hair back, exposing his forehead, and kissed it like he had earlier. He wanted to tilt his chin up and kiss him further, but he sensed Octavio tensing up in his lap, so he simply wrapped his arm around his waist again and rested his head against Octavio’s.

“...’nd that’s one of the reasons I like you,” Octavio mumbled against him after a long while of silence. “I feel like you want me. Even after you disabled all that stuff. You’re still here.”

A pair of hands grabbed at his suit jacket, tugging a little.

“Guess that’s why I got so mad earlier. I thought...”

Taejoon waited for him to finish his sentence—waited for Octavio to open up to him, to truly expose himself as Taejoon had exposed himself to him countless times before. But instead, his charge suddenly sprang to his feet, jumping out of Taejoon’s lap with a laugh.

“Man, we’re getting too emotional. That shit’s boring,” he said, stretching his arms above his head. Taejoon let his hands drop in defeat. “I’m gonna go get breakfast, ‘kay? Then I have to deal with father, but I’m sure you’ll be fine without me.”

And just like that he was gone, faster than Taejoon could blink. He stared at where the other man had just stood, a little dumbfounded, before sighing and running a hand through his hair. He felt like they had been on the cusp of something important there, but...

It was whatever. Octavio would open up to him one day.

Hopefully.

* * *

The next three days were amongst the most stressful of Taejoon’s time spent at the Silva estate.

He cranked his robotic act up to eleven, moving as stiffly as possible, biting hard on the insides of his cheeks to prevent himself from making any sort of expression that an android could not make, and spoke only when spoken to. He was terrified that Irina, having discovered he and Octavio, would eventually put together not just the fact that Octavio was acting inappropriately with him, but the fact that Taejoon was _not_ an android, thus endangering him even further.

He felt her gaze on the back of his neck more than once—he would sometimes turn to see her staring at him, brow furrowed while deep in thought. He wasn’t sure what was running through her mind, but it unnerved him all the same, and so when Octavio tried mouthing at his neck in the living room one evening he gently shoved him away and whispered “ _Later._ ”

Octavio seemed to have the exact opposite approach as Taejoon. Now that Irina knew of their activities, he seemed eager to push the limits of just how far he could take things with Taejoon while she was in the next room, and Taejoon had never been so willing to listen to the prompts inside of him that urged him to stop until then.

Octavio eventually got the memo and left him alone, and as a result would spend most of the night clinging to Taejoon, whining that now he couldn’t be with him freely during the day, he wasn’t letting him go until morning—which made a weird feeling flutter inside of Taejoon’s stomach that he would have called butterflies if he was twelve and not twenty-four.

After three days, when nothing had happened, Taejoon forced himself to relax. It was no good to be so on edge around her, or else he might slip up, and he couldn’t afford that when he was so close to freedom that he could practically taste it. He still rejected any of Octavio’s (admittedly much less frequent) attempts to initiate something outside of his room, but allowed himself to be pulled away from his chores now that he had assured himself that Irina wasn’t going to tell Kishou any time soon.

When his father went out of town again, this time with Adele, Octavio pulled Taejoon out into the garage to get him to help him with something. He found the aviator suit Octavio had bought in a crumpled heat on the ground, next to a pair of fabric scissors and a helmet of some sort.

“I need you to cut this in half,” Octavio told him, crouching down to scoot the suit towards Taejoon.

“...Why.”

“‘Cuz I want it to be a crop-top.” Octavio suddenly held the aviator suit up to his body, placing his finger a few inches above his belly button. “Cut it like, right here. Oh, and take the sleeves off too. And make the pants shorts!”

Taejoon sighed, but sat down across from the other man, reaching for the fabric scissors. He supposed this was one way to spend time with his boyfriend—no, charge—but he had no idea why they were doing this. He unzipped the suit to make it easier to cut and watched Octavio reach for a bottle of white paint out of the corner of his eye, the helmet in his lap.

“What’s this for?” Taejoon asked as he started cutting, inhumanly precise thanks to his robotic ability to keep his hands still and straight. 

“Think of it like a costume,” Octavio said, shaking the paint bottle a little. “I’m gonna start wearing it to the tracks and live-streaming my races. Get a start on my influencer career and all that.”

Taejoon let out a short laugh at the prospect, but stopped when he noticed Octavio’s ears turn red as he bent his head over the helmet. “Oh, you’re being serious?”

“It’s nothing,” Octavio mumbled flatly, painting a thin white line on one side of the mouthpiece. Feeling that he had accidentally offended him, Taejoon scooted a little so he was closer to the other, apologetic as he said,

“I didn’t mean to make you feel embarrassed.”

“I’ve just thought about it a lot,” Octavio said defensively, before his voice turned more light-hearted, but Taejoon realized with a jolt that he was starting to pick up on when Octavio was faking things. “I’ve always wanted to film the shit I do, and...my dad’s never gonna support me, so I’ve got to start somewhere, huh?”

Taejoon hummed in agreement, discarding the fabric he had cut and moving to lop off the pants at the knees, but he paused, scissors in hand as he processed the words.

“What did you and your dad talk about the other day?” He asked, wondering if his hunch was correct, and Octavio rolled his eyes.

“Basically said he’s tired of my attitude and I’m never gonna get a job at his company until I get my act together. Which is good ‘cuz I didn’t want that stupid fucking job anyways, but it means he’s gonna stop giving me money, and the only thing I have now is my trust fund.”

“Oh,” Taejoon said, feeling a little awkward. Family matters were difficult; he was never sure the limits of what he was allowed to say and what would make Octavio close up on him. He wasn’t even sure if Octavio interpreted this event as freeing or yet another instance of someone abandoning him, so he kept his mouth shut and got to work on the pants.

About two minutes passed in silence before Octavio started playing music loudly on his phone, tapping his foot a little too fast to exactly match the beat as he continued painting. Taejoon watched him, smiling without realizing it as the other man bobbed his head, mouthing along to the words to the song, but he soon became distracted by the pattern Octavio was creating on the mask and asked,

“Are those shark teeth?”

“Yup!” The other held the mask up to his face, eyes narrowed dramatically. “Say hello to _Octane!_ ”

“Why shark teeth?”

“They’re my second-favorite animal.”

“What’s the first, then?”

“Bunnies,” Octavio said, and went right back to painting. Taejoon supposed that made sense—the other man had a variety of clothing with the same cartoon bunny on it, but he had guessed it was a liking for the character and not necessarily rabbits as a whole. It was cute, though. Octavio was cute.

 _You sound lame,_ a voice that sounded suspiciously like Mila said in his head.

“Why?” Taejoon asked out loud, because he genuinely wanted to know. Even if he wasn’t exactly an arts-and-crafts type of person, doing this thing with Octavio was relaxing; the sort of activity he wouldn’t be pressed about if they got caught doing it, because it was excusable and safe. And he liked talking to him, more than anything, especially when he was relaxed like this and they didn't need to worry about being overheard or found out.

So Octavio told him about the pet rabbit he’d had as a child named Navi, and Taejoon nodded along, fashioning the high-waisted aviator pants into shorts. When Octavio abruptly ended his story with _‘and then Navi flew in a rocket and died’_ , Taejoon had to stop himself from laughing due to the incongruity of the subject.

Hearing a cute story about his boyfr— _charge’s_ —old pet rabbit only for it to end abruptly in fantastical death was unexpectedly amusing, and he instantly felt bad for the way his lips turned up at the corners, which didn’t go unnoticed.

“Glad you found that funny,” Octavio said, dropping his paintbrush into the bottle. “I had to go to a therapist for that.”

“I’m sorry," Taejoon apologized.

“Nah, it’s fine.” Octavio set the helmet down, a top row of teeth painted on the mouthpiece. “Okay, I’m bored now.”

“But I’m almost done,” Taejoon pointed out, gesturing to the sleeve he had started. _Plus, it’s nice to talk to you,_ but he didn't say this out loud.

“Well finish it, then.” Octavio got to his feet so he could walk circles around Taejoon, humming to himself while he finished taking the sleeves off of the crop-top he had created out of the aviator suit. He honest to god had no idea how this outfit was going to look when it came together, but as long as it made Octavio happy, he supposed it didn’t matter.

He imagined Octavio in this get-up, posing in front of a camera on his painted bike. Even if slightly ridiculous, it worked for him. It was... _Octavio._ Or Octane, at least.

Octavio came to a sudden halt in front of Taejoon and proceeded to slap his hand to his forehead, the sound of it startling him a little.

“You know what I fucking forgot this whole time?” He said loudly, and Taejoon hummed. “Adele works for Hammond.”

Taejoon stopped too, before setting the fabric scissors down because that information was _new._ “She what?”

He had no record of this within his databases—not one mention of Adele’s workplace, this position left null and void on his analysis of her, so he had simply assumed she had been without a job. That, and he had stereotyped her as nothing more than Kishou's trophy wife, but he had evidently been wrong.

“Yeah, her lab got destroyed right before we got you. She went on vacation ‘cuz of the stress, and her job is technically on hold until they find someplace new for her, but.” Octavio crouched down in front of Taejoon excitedly, eyes wide. “We could swipe her I.D. and break into one of the Hammond labs to find your blueprints!”

“You’re an idiot,” Taejoon breathed out, dropping the fabric scissors to the ground. “How did you never think to mention such a key piece of information?”

“All the stepmoms start to blend together, okay?” 

Taejoon scrubbed one hand over his face, fighting back the amalgamation of emotions inside of him. This was one of the things he had tried not thinking about lest he start having anxiety attacks over it—just how did Mystik expect him to break into HR should she need him to? He was trying to hide the fact that he was a rogue servant as distantly from them as possible, not sneak around right under their nose. Breaking in would certainly be dangerous, but if they had Adele’s I.D...they could manage it. They could sneak in.

And...they might not even _need_ to sneak in. Adele worked for Hammond and that important guy from the party—Hans—had met Octavio and seen firsthand his interest in the workings of McCormick’s hand. Octavio could lie and say he wanted a tour of the Hammond lab, that he was interested in working there—and if needed, could even pay a pretty sum of money to get him inside the place to steal the blueprints, or at least bring a hard-drive with him to get as much information as he could, information that Taejoon didn’t have access to.

Octavio waved his hand in front of Taejoon’s face, snapping him out of his thinking and scheming.

“Yo, you good?”

“This is...great news, thank you,” Taejoon mumbled out, trying to keep himself from grabbing the man across from him and kissing him right on the mouth because this really was an excellent development that was putting some of his anxieties to rest.

Everything was going to be fine, he told himself. They had a few minor hiccups, what with Irina and all that, but...things were going his way. This was going to be _easy_. He would soon see Gaea again, and Mystik, and all the other kids in the orphanage that he hadn’t seen in years, and even if he would have to lay low for a while...it would be better than this current life of having to pretend to be someone he's not.

“Cool,” Octavio said, and then teetered a little to the side, as if throwing himself off-balance. “Um...so, I was thinking...”

When Taejoon raised his eyebrows, his charge’s face got a little red. "What?"

Octavio mumbled something so quietly that Taejoon did not hear a word he said. It was strange to see Octavio so flustered and shy—it was also very cute, but he was concerned.

“What did you say?" Taejoon asked, tilting the other's head up to try and get him to look at him properly.

“Whenyourunawayyoucouldtakemewithyou,” Octavio said all in one go, and Taejoon frowned because he _really_ could not understand what he was saying.

“ _What?_ ”

“You know what? Forget it,” Octavio said, and straightened up, practically running out of the garage as if embarrassed.

Taejoon stared after him, confused, before sighing to himself and beginning to gather the mess of fabric he’d made to throw it away. It was only while carrying the clothing scraps out to the garbage did he realize what he had been trying to say, and he nearly dropped what he was holding as it hit him like a truck. _Oh._

He...had honestly not thought that far ahead. None of his plans of escaping and living on Gaea again had involved Octavio by his side, but he realized with dawning clarity that he really could not do this without him—but couldn't bring him along when that time came. 

He didn’t want to be cruel to Octavio and leave him behind, didn't want to add onto Octavio's obvious pile of abandonment issues that he wasn't sure the other man knew how to healthily cope with, but at the same time, he wasn’t sure how...do-able it all was. If he took Octavio with him, wouldn’t that raise an alarm back on Psamathe? Would his father not send the authorities to look for the heir to his company, and would they follow them to Gaea?

_I’m never gonna get a job at his company until I get my act together. He’s gonna stop giving me money._

Except...it sounded like Kishou was already starting to cut Octavio off, so would he even care if he left? And even if Kishou let him go, Taejoon would essentially be on the run for quite a while until the Syndicate left him alone. They would surely notice that the son of one of their biggest sponsors was gone along with his android servant, and it would paint a target on Octavio’s back. Hell, even this relationship they had now was risky, and put Octavio in danger just by being associated with him and knowing the truth.

Was Taejoon a fool to string Octavio along? Octavio could prove to be a massive help in getting Taejoon back to Gaea, but from there...would he be willing to take Octavio with him if it meant knowing he was endangering his charge’s life by doing so, or would he have to abandon him for his best interests?

_You all think you know what’s best for me, but you don’t! Nobody cares about what I want!_

What _did_ Octavio want? Taejoon honestly wasn’t sure, but he had some ideas. Freedom to do what he wanted, to be his authentic self after having grown up in a stifling household...to pursue his own interests without being chained down to the responsibility of a massive company...and....

He remembered Octavio the other night, head bowed as if hiding his expression, tugging at the bottom of Taejoon's suit jacket as he apologized for his actions. He'd never heard him apologize sincerely before, or even act like he was in the wrong, and knowing Octavio cared enough to say sorry to him left Taejoon feeling warm like an idiot.

Taejoon. Octavio also wanted Taejoon. That was the conclusion he came to.

He headed back into the house, running a hand through his hair. He almost felt exhausted, an all too human emotion for someone without the capability of becoming tired, and when he stepped into the living room to find Octavio typing something furiously on his phone, he thought to himself that it was not going to be his choice to make.

He would have to let Octavio make that decision on his own when the time came, and Taejoon would roll with it, as he has done so far. Both options would hurt him and relieve him simultaneously for different reasons, and he couldn't make that choice for Octavio, who was a grown man. He'd have to do that on his own.

He approached the other and lifted him up unexpectedly, who thrashed about in his grip, complaining that his hands were cold and to let him down right now because _dude what the fuck._

"Do you want to make out or not?" Taejoon asked, amused, and Octavio went limp in his arms at that. A beat passed.

"Yeah," his charge finally said, and Taejoon carried him to his room while Octavio finished typing his text. He laid the other gently onto his bed and hovered over him, in a good mood because of today's events—the realization that Octavio wanted him, the plan he had formulated for breaking into Hammond, the fact that Kishou might cut Octavio off and leave him free to accompany Taejoon back to Gaea. It would all work in his favor, one way or another.

He ran his fingertips along the line of Octavio's stomach, his shirt having ridden up to his chest, and watched that pretty flush rise to his boyfriend's face.

 _He’s not your fucking boyfriend,_ that little voice inside of him said while Octavio gasped beneath him. _You’re not human enough to be anyone’s boyfriend, anyone’s lover. You’re the in-between._

 _Shut up,_ he told himself, and kissed Octavio.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> irina voice help the kid ive looked after for like 15 years fucks robots now what do i do
> 
> anyways its been 7 whole chapters and i feel like we are finally getting into Octavio Silva's Plethora Of Abandonment Issues (And Other Stuff.) an emotionally manipulative little shit who maybe needs a hug and also lots of therapy
> 
> hope u enjoyed!! dont be afraid to give me a review and THANK U to everyone who leaves long ones bc they make me genuinely so happy :,,,)
> 
> the calm before the storm...


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow this is long sorry 0__0
> 
> i guess nobody liked that last chapter ??? HGAJSIJW i didnt get many comments on it like all the other chapters, so sorry if that one sucked in particular. here's a longer chapter to make up for it :3

“Your face looks thin,” Mystik remarked, somehow deadpan and judgmental at the same time.

“I literally cannot eat."

“Auntie, he’s lying,” Octavio butted in, throwing his arms around Taejoon's neck and actively trying to be obnoxious. “He hasn’t even tried.”

“ _Auntie?_ ” Taejoon repeated, affronted, but Mystik just scoffed and fixed him with a look.

“As soon as you get back here, son, I’m making goulash. I know you can’t resist it.”

"Don't waste food," he mumbled, but Octavio spoke over him.

“He’s drank before, though. When we went out to a club together."

Mystik arched an unimpressed eyebrow, and he felt his face burn. “You drank alcohol before even attempting to eat?”

“Aren’t we supposed to be talking about the plan right now?” Taejoon complained, because while he was glad that his boyfriend and old caretaker were getting along, they were _bullying_ him. They had found common ground in making fun of him during their fourth virtual meet-up, and he had just spent the past ten minutes enduring their teasing. He shuddered at the thought of what would have happened if Mila had been added to the mix.

“Yes, right, the plan,” Mystik sighed, and turned her body a little to allow one of her cats to hop into her lap. “I’ve done my best to create a new hard-drive, but the problem is _you._ I cannot say that if you plug this hard-drive in, your self will retain. You will have free will—but your memories? Your personality? I’m afraid of the possibility that none of it will carry over.”

“I get his past memories might be erased and all that,” Octavio said, cutting her off, but she didn’t look offended. Rather, her lips curled up at the corners, and Taejoon realized it was the same fond look she gave to him and Mila whenever their curiosity got the best of them. “But his current memories—aren’t those being logged onto his new body? Like, if he’s a bot now, he’s got to have a record. He has fucking—databases or something. The memories gotta be stored somewhere, right? The new ones?”

Taejoon gave the other man a look, seeing this question for what it really was— _his memories with_ me _won’t be gone, right?_ —but didn’t want to say anything in front of Mystik. Instead he reached his hand out, trying to take Octavio’s into his, but the man was too restless for that and tugged himself away, instead folding his arms over his chest.

“That would be a reasonable assumption,” Mystik said, giving him a tilt of her head in acknowledgement. “But again, his personality might not be the same. Which is why I need the two of you to find the blueprints for his brain. The source code, they call it.”

Taejoon’s eyes narrowed at that, and he felt a pit of mortification form in his stomach. “So—do I _not_ have my brain?”

“You do,” Mystik said. She held up the hard-drive for him to see before plugging it into her computer, and he in turn plugged in the blank one Octavio had gotten for him yesterday. She started to copy all of the data over, a failsafe they had taken to doing every week in case she had to destroy her copy or vice versa.

"But?"

“Park, it took you eight months to go from being officially dead to being a servant. I know a few people in Vinson. I’ve got an idea of how simulacrums work. You think they’d let something as valuable as your brain exist without having a back-up?”

“Considering they rented me out to babysit a rich brat, yes,” Taejoon said. Octavio kicked the back of his chair in response.

“They spent that eight months creating a source code in case anything should happen to that noggin of yours, boy,” Mystik said, not giving his comment the satisfaction of a reaction. “Which is bad. As long as they have that source code, they have _you."_

“So I’m going to break in, steal it, and then destroy all the evidence?”

“I raised you so well.”

“Wait, what?” Octavio asked, sounding as if he had zoned out a little. “They made a back-up of your brain? Like, they just have a fake Taejoon brain waiting around?”

“They must have done it before I failed to wake up,” Taejoon murmured, remembering the logs he had accessed when he had first undone his programming. “When they planned on interrogating me and taking advantage of my encryption skills. If they had planned to harness my intellect, I imagine they made a copy of my brain just in case something happened to the project."

“This sounds complicated,” Octavio complained. “If you can copy peoples’ brains, why wouldn’t you just copy the smart part into everyone’s brain and then create a bunch of geniuses?”

“The same reason that simulacrums are reborn using synthetic bodies and not real ones,” Mystik said, and her cat pawed at her face, as if growing bored with all of the complicated brain-talk too. “It’s a half-life, son. But we can make it _Park’s_ half-life again if we get everything back that’s his. What division does your stepmother work in?”

“Security.”

“Convenient.” Mystik took a sip from her coffee mug, one that Mila had gotten for her on Mother’s Day about five years ago. It said _BOSS BITCH_ on it, and had been intended as a gag, but she still used it about every day, and it made Taejoon feel a pang in his chest at the memory of when she’d first opened up the gift and Mila’s guffawing laughter. “When you go for a tour, you won’t be able to access everything with the visitor’s pass. That’s what you need her I.D. for.”

The rest of the meeting was spent going over every detail of the plan they had pieced together these past few weeks, Taejoon nudging Octavio every now and then to get him to pay attention. They only had an hour before they would have to cut the meeting, and he needed Octavio to absorb as much information as possible before they initiated the plan this weekend, on Saturday, when Kishou and Adele would be out of town again.

Taejoon unplugged the hard-drive when the data finished transferring over and tucked it safely into its designated hiding spot, a little nook in Octavio’s desk where he hid his syringes (which had not been a fun conversation to have, but they had at least had it) and listened to Octavio and Mystik’s back-and-forth for a little while more before the timer on Mystik’s phone went off, and her blue eyes found his.

“We’ll get you out of this,” she said, and her cat gave a little meow, as if ‘we’ included him too. “Don’t give up yet. Godspeed, son.”

“And me,” Octavio said.

“You too, Silva. I hope to have a son-in-law soon.”

“Oh my god,” Taejoon said, reaching over to turn the monitor off. “ _Goodbye._ ”

Mystik smirked at him and waved, before the screen went black, and Taejoon sat back in Octavio’s chair with a sigh. He ran a hand through his hair, going over the plan in his mind while Octavio started up a video game on his TV, chattering on about one he’d bought last year but never got around to playing because he never felt motivated enough to play it. He didn't seem too stressed about the whole plan, despite the fact that half of it centered on getting the both of them safely out of Psamathe and into Gaea—and yes, he _was_ coming with Taejoon.

They had sorted all the details out these past few weeks; once Mystik finalized the hard-drive that would release Taejoon of all ties with Hammond and the Syndicate, they would both escape to Gaea and lay low for a couple of months, hiding from the authorities. He would try clearing his name while he was at it, and Octavio could debut his whole Octane persona online.

He would honestly rather Octavio lay low too, but it was already a lot, yanking him from his suffocating home life—he didn’t want to recreate that same environment, and since no one knew of ‘Octane’ yet, it would be hard for anyone to piece together the fact that they were the same person.

“I can see it now,” he remembered Octavio saying weeks ago, floating on his back in the swimming pool. “Octane, professional daredevil and prankster.”

“More like amateur,” Taejoon said, kicking his metal foot in the water to splash his boyfriend, and Octavio gave a shout of indignation.

"Hey, you'll be changing your tune when I'm the breadwinner of our house!"

"You sound awfully sure of yourself," Taejoon said, and Octavio had tried pulling him into the water then, red-faced and determined.

He was broken out of his thoughts by his boyfriend presently tugging at his hand, trying to pull him onto his bed with him, a silent command and plea in his eyes. Needy, but not wanting to admit it. He obliged, crawling carefully to join the other man in playing his video game, and watched the way Octavio's eyes narrowed in concentration as he mashed at buttons, blasting through the level with an almost concerning amount of speed. 

“You remember everything?” Taejoon asked quietly, reaching a hand out to brush a few strands of hair out of Octavio’s face, and feeling warmth inside of him when the other leaned into his touch.

“Yep,” his boyfriend said, popping the _‘p’._ “I can’t wait to get out of here, man. It’s like a dream come true.”

Taejoon nodded, humming out, “Me too. It’s been...almost six months already?”

“Six months of looking after my sexy ass,” Octavio said, tongue poking out a little as he died to an enemy. 

“Very sexy."

Octavio glanced at him then, giving him a curious look that made him feel self-conscious, and he raised his eyebrows in response with a silent question at the tip of his tongue. When Octavio didn’t say anything, he verbalized it: “What?”

“You’ve changed,” Octavio noted, cocking his head to the side. “A lot.”

“How so?”

“...More open?” Octavio set his controller down to fidget with his hands, not meeting Taejoon’s eyes and instead focusing on a spot on the wall. He seemed to be fumbling with his words, not good at expressing himself, but Taejoon was patient. “Especially these past few weeks. You're less robot-y and more human-y.”

Taejoon supposed that was true. Within these past few weeks he had finally come to terms with the fact that he was not human—not _truly,_ and he never would be. At least, not in the normal sense of the word.

Because he _was,_ in fact, human; he just experienced it in a different way now. He couldn’t physically feel much, and had a body mostly made of metal, but that didn’t matter—he still had emotions, thoughts and desires and everything that made up a person, with maybe a few different parts and a different way of living—but he _was_ human. 

His feelings towards Octavio and Mystik and Mila helped cement it all for him—the love he felt for all of them in different ways was far more advanced, more complicated, than even the highest form of A.I. could hope to achieve. Maybe it was a cliché, these types of emotions helping him come to terms with his own humanity, but it kept him sane—this, and his goal of getting his life back to normal, returning to Gaea and settling down without the constant threat of his life being cut short, and living it out with Octavio.

“I think I’m more like how I was before I died,” Taejoon finally said, reaching a hand out to take Octavio’s. This time the other man allowed it, curling his fingers against his, and he wished for the nth time that he could feel it—the calluses on his hand, the warmth of his palm and the constant trembling in his fingers from his own restlessness. Wished he could run his thumb gently over his knuckles, and be as truly intimate as a human—but he would settle for this, watching Octavio's fingers tap against his inner wrist.

“I like it,” Octavio said, drawing his attention back to his face. “You're not so boring now.”

Taejoon squinted, pretending to be offended. “Was I boring before?”

“No, but you _were_ a narc-bot.” Octavio picked up his controller again with one hand and resumed his game level, and Taejoon turned his head to watch. “You’re gonna be cool in a week, though. We’ve got this.”

Right. One more week of pretending to be a soulless bot. One more week of schooling his expression into one of neutrality, one more week of being ordered around by Irina, one more week until he was with Octavio not because of any lingering programming, but because of his real, actual emotions towards him.

Just one more week of it all.

And then he was free.

* * *

Six days until D-Day, a problem arose. The buoyant feeling of everything going good was near-instantly bogged down by Octavio bursting into his room, breathless, and saying,

"Adele’s gonna bring her I.D!”

“What?” Taejoon asked sharply, setting his book down. He had spent the past couple of days memorizing the inner workings of Hammond Robotics, and had found a manifesto of sorts online to aid him with it—but he set it aside now as Octavio paced in front of him, recounting what he had evidently just been told.

“Okay so I told you her lab like blew up well it was the third lab to be destroyed right after Singh and Vinson labs and they’re worried they’re targeted attacks and since she works security they’re gonna have her inspect other Hammond labs while she’s out of town on Saturday,” Octavio said all of this in one breath, but having looked after him for months, Taejoon kept up with him easily. “And they’re leaving a day early so she can visit as many places as possible over the weekend."

Taejoon got up to pace as well, thinking this new development over. They had chosen this particular weekend for several reasons—one, nobody would notice Octavio leaving Psamathe, unsure of when the next opportunity of Kishou and Adele leaving would arise, and two, HR was currently offering internships—but if Adele was going to be taking her I.D. with her, then that would throw a wrench into the rest of their plans. 

Fuck, and he had been so deadset on this Saturday, too. The timing was perfect for a variety of reasons, but they couldn't initiate their plan without Adele's I.D.—not without doubling the risk of failure.

Unless...

“Do you have a copier?” Taejoon asked, stopping in front of Octavio, who shrugged.

“If we did, it’d be in my dad’s office.”

“Hammond I.D.s use a barcode,” he recalled from the manifesto, and resumed his pacing, Octavio's eyes following him. “Nothing too complicated, which is good. If you got a hold of her I.D., we could copy it and have our own.”

“Why didn’t we do that before, then?” Octavio mumbled and deflated, almost as if he were annoyed that this new problem had been solved so quickly.

“I can’t predict the future,” Taejoon shot back, tone short. “And I’d rather they not notice it’s missing.”

Octavio’s lip curled, and Taejoon instantly backtracked, his voice lilting in an apology. “Sorry for snapping. But we have to do this quickly so they don’t notice anything, alright? Tomorrow. Let’s go into town and make copies.”

Octavio groaned, falling in step beside Taejoon and pacing with him. “Can’t we just do it all now?”

Taejoon stopped, crossing his arms and fixing his boyfriend with a look. “Patience is key. We have to time this right.”

“I’m just sayin’, if we did it my way, we could be gone by midnight tonight,” Octavio said.

“And have the authorities tailing us.”

“That makes it more fun!”

When Taejoon didn’t respond, just gave him more Looks, his boyfriend sighed and relented, “Fine. Tomorrow, then.”

Five days until D-Day, Taejoon entered Kishou’s office for the first time.

It had been one of the places he’d been forbidden from entering when shackled to his programming, and though he had entered the man’s bedroom after the restrictions had been lifted, he had never gotten around to snooping in his office like he had intended to.

Come to find, it was not just Kishou’s office, but Adele’s too. He wanted to kick himself for never checking it sooner, because one look at the Hammond Robotics logo on her computer would have told him all he needed to know sooner.

The room itself made him pause as he took it all in—the stark contrast between both sides, Kishou’s office entirely white and plain, like the rest of the house, like half of Octavio’s clothing. Adele’s office was also white, but she rebelled against the color scheme in any way she could; a purple mug with what smelled like days-old coffee inside next to her keyboard, golden stars and stickers decorating her desk, and a purple rug beneath her desk chair that was well-trod.

It seemed to be almost in direct defiance to Kishou’s side of the room, because he also had a rug, the same exact type, but white. He remembered thinking to himself, several weeks ago, that she and Octavio might have more in common than he thought, but he knew if he brought this up to the other man he’d shoot the idea down.

He went through her things carefully, Octavio purposely getting into trouble downstairs to keep any of the staff from wandering up and catching Taejoon in the act. He picked up a folded piece of paper and spread it out, curious, and saw that it was a map of the solar system. Adele had apparently used a blue ink dauber to mark several spots on it, some planets having quite a few and some having none—they were especially concentrated on both Solace and Psamathe.

Humming curiously, he squinted at a word scrawled next to Talos, one of the planets left untouched by the ink dauber. One word had been crossed out, so he couldn’t see what it had said previously, but the new word beneath it said _Harvester._

Taejoon realized that a piece of paper had fallen out when he’d unfolded the map, and picked it up to examine it. It didn’t take long for him to figure out that it was a death toll for every accident that took place at the numerous labs Hammond extended its services to. Folding the map and paper back up neatly, he put it back into her desk, not really wanting to deal with any of those morbid findings just yet. They didn’t concern him, anyways.

He finally found her employee I.D., hanging from a starry lanyard and showing her smiling face. Tucking it into the inner pocket of his suit jacket, he closed the draw, and turned to leave the office, but something on Kishou’s desk caught his attention.

Frowning, he approached it, glancing over everything—the paperweights lined up neatly, the shiny laptop that looked brand new, the pad of crisp white paper...it all looked far too impersonal, save for a framed photograph on the corner of his desk.

He recognized the person without having ever actually seen her before, his databases coming in handy once again—Malinalli Silva (née Reyes), Octavio’s late mother. She was smiling serenely at the camera, thick black hair braided over her shoulder, and eyes a comforting black to match. Her nose was the same exact shape as Octavio’s, and she too had many freckles scattered over what he could see of her skin. Even if he didn’t have his database to tell him who she was, he would have been able to guess that she had some relation to his boyfriend anyway.

Taejoon picked up the frame, wondering what Adele thought of her husband having a picture of his first wife on his desk. He wondered why Kishou had the picture in the first place. He wondered if Octavio felt that Malinalli was yet another person who had abandoned him. He didn’t know the circumstances, but he knew she had died—he wondered how Octavio felt about his mother. He’d never heard him talk about her.

He could save the questions for later, he supposed, when they were safely off Psamathe.

* * *

“Pretty sure that lady is giving us the stink eye,” Octavio mumbled quietly as they printed out three copies of Adele’s I.D., one for the both of them and an extra just in case. They were in a PC café to print this out—whereas libraries were brightly-lit and monitored what was being printed on their computers, the PC café was dim, meaning that it would be harder to identify the two on security cameras, and no one was paying any attention to what they were printing.

At least, that had been the idea, but one of the receptionists was watching them both like a hawk, suspicious, even though Taejoon was dressed in the outfit Octavio had bought for him at that department store, passing almost entirely as human.

“It’s fine,” Taejoon said, who was clacking away at the computer, pretending to play games. He watched the printer spit out three pieces of paper, the black ink sharp, which was good. “We have an hour. If we leave now it will look suspicious.”

“I think you just want to play video games,” Octavio said back.

“Perhaps.” Taejoon slid the headset on, giving his boyfriend a look. “We haven’t actually played together yet.”

“Wanna duel?” Octavio asked excitedly, already picking ‘custom match’ in the game tab. Taejoon joined Octavio’s party, and when the receptionist wasn’t looking, reached over to snatch up the copies they had printed. He folded them precisely in his lap, making sure not to accidentally fold up the barcode sections, before placing them securely into his pocket.

The receptionist eventually made her way over to them, but walked slowly behind them, acting as if nothing was happening. She watched them both play for a couple of minutes—Taejoon was much better at this game than Octavio was, though Octavio won every single round where he was able to pick Tracer—before disappearing into the back room.

“We should leave now,” Taejoon mumbled, having watched her out of the corner of his eye.

“You’re just saying that ‘cuz I’m about to win,” Octavio said. 

“The score is 4-1.”

“I’m making a comeback, baby!”

“Coming back from _what?_ ”

Octavio hit him.

They went to the food court so Taejoon could change back into his normal clothes in the bathroom, smoothing out his slacks and adjusting the lapels of his suit jacket to make it look like he hadn’t stuffed them into a backpack for two hours. When he returned to where Octavio was waiting on the curb for Delilah, he was sipping from a tall cup of milk tea.

“What flavor is that?” Taejoon asked, giving the green drink a judgmental look.

“Honeydew,” Octavio said. “With that green apple popping boba.”

Taejoon snubbed his nose. “That sounds gross.”

Octavio opened his mouth to say something, but snapped it shut when Delilah’s car pulled around the corner, and they both stood stiffly, as if they hadn’t just been talking to one another. She slowed to a stop in front of them and they both clambered into the backseat, Octavio almost accidentally spilling his drink on his way inside. Taejoon swore he saw Delilah glare at Octavio from the rearview, but her chauffeur’s hat made it hard for him to see her expression. 

Did she know that Octavio had threatened to blackmail Irina with photos of the two of them together? How much had she been told? Did she know that Octavio had an inappropriate relationship with Taejoon, in Irina’s own words, or just that he knew of Delilah and Irina and was holding it over their heads?

These questions spun in his mind as they drove back to the Silva estate, his fingers tapping absentmindedly against his thigh, nervous, before he realized what he was doing and clenched his hand into a fist.

He didn’t want to stress over it too much, knew that if he got too paranoid it would all snowball into even larger feelings of anxiety, and he couldn’t afford that so close to D-Day. He needed to calm himself, even if Delilah’s eyes and the copies in his pocket felt like they were burning holes into him.

They got home and into Octavio’s room without incident, and when the door shut behind them, Taejoon let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“Taejoon,” Octavio said, getting his attention, and he asked, “You good?”

“...Just anxious,” Taejoon admitted, scrubbing his hand through his hair and watching Octavio stir the dregs of his milk tea with the bright pink straw it had come with.

“Stop being anxious, then.”

“Thank you. It was that easy.”

Octavio grinned. “First thing we’re gonna do when we get outta here is get you a cold one. We’re gonna get so fucking drunk when this is all over.”

Taejoon thought about it—drinking, eating, talking, existing without worry of getting found out, of getting shut down, of getting ripped limb from limb. Doing it all with Octavio, where they didn't have to snap back into place once they got too close to others.

He smiled, and said, “Sure.”

* * *

“Mr. Silva?” A voice cackled over Kishou’s desk phone, his address book flipped open to display the name Hans Brandt and the man’s contact information. He and Octavio had both poked fun at the address book as a whole—really, who carried one of these nowadays—but Octavio’s expression was now schooled into something very straight and businesslike, a look he had never seen on his face before.

“Nope,” Octavio said, speaking in English. “It’s his son.”

There was a pause.

“Ah! Octavian, right?”

“Octavio.”

“Right, yes, something like that—how can I help you? Wait, allow me—”

Taejoon took a step back as a pale blue hologram started emitting from the phone, Hans himself blinking at Octavio over his glasses while the image flickered. Taejoon walked around behind the desk so that Octavio could see him, and gestured for him to go on.

“I heard you guys are offering internships?” Octavio asked, and Hans nodded.

“Right you are, we have some currently available. Are you interested in working with our company?”

“Yup. I mean, yes, I am. But I’d like a tour of the facility first, in—” Octavio paused, and Taejoon hurriedly held up four fingers. “—four days, por favor.”

“Four days?” Hans asked. “My boy, we could do one today if you’d li—”

“I have plans today,” Octavio interrupted, clasping his hands over his father’s desk and sitting up straight in his chair. He looked so much like Kishou in that one moment that it was almost unnerving. “Saturday is the most convenient time for me.”

“...Does your father know?” 

Octavio’s eyes narrowed, and Taejoon froze, unsure how they should answer that question. Which would raise more alarms? Yes or no? Would Hans ask Kishou about it later? Would he insist Kishou should know? Would he find it suspicious? Would he—

“Not yet,” Octavio lied, giving Taejoon a quick glance. His foot was tapping against the ground, the only thing showing his nervousness. “I don’t think he’d be too happy that I’m dropping out of med school for this. That’s why I’m interested in an internship and not like, an actual job, y’know?”

“I see.” Hans nodded. “So I suppose you would like Miss Adele to not know just yet too?”

“Please.”

“We’ll see what we can do for you then. Nobody is really at the lab on Saturdays during summer, but...”

He went on to explain a bunch of stuff that the two of them already knew, and had been one of the reasons why they had chosen that exact date to go. Taejoon nodded along to his words, glad that everything was lining up with the information he had gotten from both the manifesto and his previous hacking of their servers and schedules.

Octavio’s eyes were glazed over, both his legs jittering now as he stared blankly at Hans, and when Hans finished speaking, he gave him a neutral smile and said, “Gracias. I’ll swing by Saturday, then.”

“Glad I could be of some help. I’ll schedule you for noon.”

“Thank you. Bye.”

Before Hans could get out another word, Octavio reached over and pressed the ‘end call’ button. A moment of silence passed.

“I feel like my daddddd,” Octavio groaned, banging his head against the desk and switching back to Spanish. “All... _professional._ ”

“You said it, not me,” Taejoon said, and walked around to help him put everything back to normal. He glanced at the phone numbers written inside the address book, memorizing Hans’ in case something came up, before putting it neatly back inside the draw. "And ' _dropping out of med school'_ implies that you actually did your schoolwork."

“You’re lucky I like you.”

“I’m grateful, actually.”

“As you should be.” Octavio let out a short laugh, which quickly tapered into silence when he glanced at the photograph at the corner of Kishou’s desk. Taejoon watched his expression, wondering if he was going to pick it up or say something about it, but the other man just turned his head away and said, “Alright, let’s get going.”

“Have you packed your stuff yet?” Taejoon asked quietly, following him out of the room and closing the door gently behind him. They both paused, listening for any of the house staff, and when they didn’t hear anyone nearby continued heading back to Octavio’s room.

“No...I hate packing.”

“Don’t leave it until last minute,” Taejoon chided. The dropship they were going to take only allowed small carry-on luggage, but they were sure if Octavio bribed the crew enough, he could take a bigger suitcase. They didn’t plan on making return trips, so he needed Octavio to pack both as much and as carefully as he could. Octavio let out an exaggerated groan, but dragged his suitcase out from beneath his bed anyways, mumbling something about boring and slow beneath his breath.

Taejoon watched him move back and forth between his things several times, clearly indecisive on what he should bring with him. It was only when he started unplugging his PC did he step forward to say, “Let me help. Also, do not take that with you.”

“But it’s miiiine,” Octavio whined.

“You can always get a new one.” He opened up Octavio’s closet, split almost in half with clothes that had been bought by his father and bought by him. One side yielded white dress-shirts, white slacks and suspenders and tuxedos, so neat it was almost as if they were never worn. The other side was full of blacks and greens and reds, crop-tops and altered t-shirts and shorts that might’ve been pants, once, but had been cut to Octavio’s desired length.

He had been around him long enough to know which shirts he wore often, and picked a couple of those, but also picked a couple he didn’t wear that much to make it harder to identify him. He also picked two of the dress-shirts and dress pants, and carried them over to where Octavio was sitting on his bed, on his phone.

“Fold them and put them inside,” Taejoon instructed.

“I don’t know how.”

Taejoon stared at him, and Octavio glanced up, ears tinting red as the silence stretched on, before he finally said, “Look, I’ve had a maid all my life, man.”

He grabbed his boyfriend by his wrist and pulled him carefully to his feet, ignoring his pouting face as he picked up one of the dress shirts and handed it to him, holding the other over his arm. “I’m going to teach you.”

Octavio scowled, but held the shirt up the way Taejoon was, following his every move—for about ten seconds, before he dropped it and said, “Oh, I just remembered something I wanna take with me. Be right back, babe!”

Caught halfway between _‘babe?’_ and _‘you are_ not _getting out of learning how to do basic laundry’,_ Taejoon watched him dart out of the room, almost surprised, but not really. Damn him. Octavio reminded him of Mila and her countless excuses on why she couldn’t do the dishes whenever it was her turn; Taejoon wasn’t even a neat person, but his room had looked relatively spotless when compared to hers.

Smiling to himself at the memory of being awarded dessert by Mystik for keeping his side of the room clean while Mila complained, Taejoon folded up the dress shirt and most of the other clothes, leaving a few on the bed so that when Octavio got back, he could finish showing him how to fold them. He grabbed a few pairs of socks and boxers, rolling them up so they would take up the least amount of space possible, before turning to Octavio’s desk.

He picked up the stack of photographs he had found last time, shuffling through them before sliding back the hidden compartment that led to Octavio’s stim and syringes, as well as the hard-drive.

He plugged it into the computer, intending to make another copy of it just in case. While he waited for the data to upload, he packed away Octavio’s extra phone charger, his tablet, and was debating on how many movies and comics to take to stave off Octavio’s inevitable boredom when he heard a sound from downstairs.

It had been well over ten minutes since Octavio had run away to, presumably, avoid learning how to do basic chores, so Taejoon rolled his eyes at the thought that his boyfriend had run off to do something stupid again. He left the room quietly, robotic as he passed by Fernanda, who was shuffling by, her eyes averted and her arms crossed over her chest.

As he made his way down the stairs, he realized that the noises he was hearing were constant, and he paused as he reached the second floor, trying to decipher just what exactly he was hearing.

It was Kishou’s voice, muffled, but surely his, coming from the first floor and accompanied by thumps and grunts. He stood frozen, listening hard as he made out vague words like ‘ _office_ ’ and ‘ _stealing'._ He then heard rapid footsteps coming up the stairs, and stepped into the shadows, watching Irina climb to the second floor, red-faced with shame as she entered an unoccupied room and shut the door behind her.

Feeling like ice was forming where his blood used to run, Taejoon stepped down to the first floor quietly, now able to make out whimpers and cries. 

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck _fuck_ —

He could practically smell the alcohol on Kishou as he entered the pristine white living room, the chandelier overhead illuminating the scene of the elder Silva kicking the younger in the stomach like theater lights. Malinalli’s photograph lay innocuously on the ground several feet away from them both, and he realized that Octavio was curled up on top of the shattered glass that had once protected it, the frame clutched to his chest.

He almost didn’t comprehend the full sight before him, his head filled with buzzing and his vision going red like it had at the department store weeks ago—but he didn’t jump to defend his boyfriend, his charge, like he had last time.

His body was instead weighed down by the remnants of his programming and his fears, anxiety thrumming through him as he watched Octavio curl against another kick. A little voice in his head told him not to interfere, to leave it alone, that it wasn’t his business, and yet he wanted nothing more than to jump to Octavio’s defense and scoop him out of harm’s way.

 _You can’t,_ another voice said inside of him, different from the first, but in agreement. _You’re not supposed to help him. You’ll blow the cover you’ve kept for so long. You’re so close._

He couldn’t see Octavio’s face, but watched the other man raise his arms up to wrap around his head as Kishou continued kicking at him, sloppy and unsteady on his feet due to the alcohol, and still letting out a steady stream of curses beneath his breath. He took one step forward, guilt swallowing him up from inside as he tried to think of what to do.

 _Should_ he step forward? He wanted to protect Octavio, take him away on the first dropship to Gaea and far out of the reach of his father—but they were so close. He had spent so much time avoiding Kishou Silva, afraid that any unnatural behavior from him would cause the other to raise concerns with Hammond, thus blowing his cover and endangering him, but Octavio was the one in danger right now.

If he stepped forward now, he risked blowing his cover. He risked getting shut down, risked taking away one of Octavio’s chances to leave, risked far more abuse at the hands of his father should he find out the true nature of their relationship. But if he didn’t step forward, he didn’t know if Octavio would be willing to forgive him. If he _could_ be forgiven.

_Do you feel pain? I wish you did._

He did. He _did_ feel pain. It was one of the most excruciating moments of his life, staring at the way Kishou’s heel came down on Octavio’s chest, snapping the frame in half as Taejoon turned his back on the scene. He couldn’t risk more than he already had. It was just fucked up that in order to prevent Octavio from getting hurt any more, he had to let him get hurt first.

He left the living room, Kishou paying him no attention as Taejoon made his way up the stairs once again, intent on digging into the first aid kit so he could treat Octavio’s wounds, if he had any.

Halfway up the stairs he froze, guilt overwhelming him so much that he felt as if he took another step he would be sick. He teetered back and forth, stuck between wanting to go back into the living room and wanting to continue his way upstairs, away from the noise, away from the abuse, as Fernanda and Irina had, fearful of Kishou Silva like he was.

Another thump. Wood clattering against wood. And a wet cough: “ _Taejoon._ ”

He moved so quickly that he wasn’t even sure what was happening himself, spurred on by the broken voice from his boyfriend, who was usually so loud and brash that hearing him like this was almost physically painful. Thankful for these long legs in this new body of his, he swept Kishou’s feet from beneath him, helped by the fact that he was already unsteady. The elder Silva crashed to the ground and Taejoon stepped past him, rolling Octavio over to get a good look at him. He pried the other’s arms away from his face, scanning his body for all injuries—bruises on his stomach and arms, a couple of sore ribs, but nothing too severe, that was good...

There was a cut on the right side of Octavio’s face from where he had been laying on top of the glass. It sliced through his right eyebrow and the top of his cheek, five inches in length and eye thankfully untouched by it all. If they went up to his room now he could treat it and prevent any infection...

“Who’s Taejoon?” Kishou groaned from behind them, and he stiffened, instinctively cradling Octavio close to his chest while the other man wheezed, trying to catch his breath.

He imagined he could almost feel his heart thumping heavily against the metal of his chest, nearly as hard as it had all those years ago, caught with stolen jewelry in his bag. Imagined he could almost feel the glass cutting into his metal knees, imagined that he could almost feel Octavio curling up against him, imagined that he could feel the heat Kishou Silva was glaring into the back of his head.

“Who’s Taejoon?” Kishou repeated, and while he had spent the past six months longing for people to say his name, this was the last person on Psamathe he wanted to know it. He lifted Octavio into the air easily, glass crunching beneath his feet, and sensed the other’s arms wrapping around his neck tightly, clinging like a sloth. He would take him upstairs and hope that Kishou left it alone, that he was drunk enough to forget about it tomorrow, and without pause he swept out of the room, carrying Octavio up the stairs and doing his best to not hurt him.

He passed by Irina on the landing, who had been watching from the safety of one of the empty rooms, phone in hand, as if ready to call for help. She stared at him as he made his way up the stairs, and he tried not to glance at her, already having pushed the boundaries enough. He swore he saw her eyes narrow, but he turned the corner and her face disappeared from view.

He treated the cuts on Octavio’s body in his bathroom, pressing a pad against his eye before criss-crossing it with medical tape to help it stay. He moved methodically, as if he had done it hundreds of times before, but he was simply being aided by his fast-moving programming, his mind screaming distantly that it was all about to come crashing down, down, down.

“Did you get the picture?” Octavio asked suddenly as Taejoon placed a Band-Aid on his shoulder, and he pressed his lips together before shaking his head. “Oh. I wanted to take it with me.”

A moment of silence as Taejoon tried to think of what to say: _I’m sorry I let that happen to you, I’m sorry I almost walked away, I’m sorry you’ve had to go through this, I’m sorry that I—_

“That’s the only picture of her we have.”

Taejoon let out a tiny exhale, putting the Band-Aids and gauze away, hands trembling—human and strange. He ran a hand through his hair, and came to a quick decision before placing his hands gently on Octavio’s thighs and meeting his gaze. “I’ll get it for you.”

Octavio’s one eye blinked back at him, half-lidded and glazed, like he was daydreaming, but he nodded slowly, and Taejoon left him alone, padding downstairs as quickly and quietly as possible.

Fernanda was sweeping up the mess in the living room, not looking his way, Malinalli’s photo placed on top of the mantle above the chimney. He reached over and swiped it quickly before returning to Octavio’s room, tucking it safely into his suitcase. They would make more copies when they got to Gaea, and he would try to find more photos of her online. He was a hacker. It would be an easy feat.

He rushed around the room, continued packing for Octavio while the man himself sat on top of the bathtub in the bathroom, watching him dart back and forth until he finished, zipping it shut. He hadn’t put so much care into it in the end—books, movies, fidget toys, clothes, money, snacks...he threw whatever in there, they could put the more personal stuff into Octavio’s carry-on. He just wanted this day to be over with so they could be another step closer to getting the hell out of here, back to Gaea, out of harm’s way.

He turned and nearly jumped a foot in the air, Octavio standing right behind him. His boyfriend threw his arms around his neck again, pulling him down, before planting a kiss on his lips and saying, “We’re gonna get the fuck outta here, ‘Joon.”

“I’m sorry,” Taejoon said, placing his hands on the other’s waist, feeling heat rise behind his eyes as he tried to communicate the immense guilt he felt building up inside his chest. “I almost—”

“I don’t care,” Octavio said, voice crackly and dry from the assault on his chest earlier. “I just wanna go to bed.”

He stared at the other, looking him up and down, before sighing and guiding him gently to his bed. He turned away when he started undressing, unplugging both of the hard-drives he had handled earlier. He placed them both into the tiny compartment with Octavio’s things, one intended to go in his carry-on and the other to be kept on Taejoon’s person at all times. 

He locked the bedroom door then before returning to Octavio's bed and laying down beside him, allowing the other man to wrap his limbs around him like a starfish, clinging tightly. He returned the favor, placing his hand on the other's hip and stroking the exposed skin there with his thumb, trying to forcibly relax his heightened nerves and tense limbs.

Sensing wetness against his neck, he pursed his lips, feeling an immense and overflowing guilt, before asking quietly,

"Are you crying?"

"No," Octavio mumbled against him, voice going in and out between clear and throaty.

"It's okay if you are," Taejoon mumbled, because he wanted his boyfriend to let it out, wanted him to tell him how he _truly_ felt, whether he forgave Taejoon for nearly walking away or not, if his body was sore and hurting.

"You're crazy," Octavio continued, the leg he had hooked over Taejoon's waist spasming involuntarily. "I don't cry. You're just imagining things."

Taejoon closed his eyes, willing himself to feign sleep as closely as he could in this body, still feeling wetness and short breaths against his neck. They were so close to getting out of here, so close to being gone, to being _free_ ; he just hoped that he hadn't just messed it all up, that the cost of having the other man safely in his arms tonight wasn't going to be the plan they had worked so hard on these past two weeks.

"I guess I am," he said after a while, and Octavio responded by pressing his face even closer to him, shoulders shaking, and he was glad for once that he couldn't really feel it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and here we have it, the first chapter of the final arc.... >:3c
> 
> EDIT while im spell-checking in 2021: lmao
> 
> dont be afraid to drop a review! i didnt get many last chapter, so idk what was wrong with it. feel free to tell me whats wrong with things if u dont like them!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 4 chapters in one month are u proud of me!!!!!
> 
> tw: some blood and injury (kinda)  
> talks of drug use (stim)

_Tomorrow._

Octavio was all packed up now, suitcase and duffel bag hidden away in his closet so that if any of the house staff came in they wouldn’t see them and ask questions.

He had also swapped out the pad over his eye with a medical eyepatch, even though he didn’t really need it. 

“Isn’t it inconvenient?” Taejoon had asked while they ate across from one another the day before, cooped up inside of Octavio’s room for the time being so that they didn’t run into anyone else. They hadn't really talked about what had happened with Kishou, and he didn't think they would any time soon.

“A little bit,” Octavio said, before sneering. “But I want them to feel guilty when they look at me.”

 _Them_ referring to those who had sat idle—it made Taejoon feel guilty too, but he supposed that an eyepatch was nowhere near as harmful as letting abuse go unchecked for years, so he didn’t say anything about it, and felt rather triumphant when Fernanda took one look at Octavio before tearing up and leaving the room.

Kishou did not comment on the eyepatch, nor did he seem to remember the name _‘Taejoon’_ , not bringing it up even once over the past few nerve-wracking days, and it was a relief when he finally left with Adele without much fanfare. He swore he saw Octavio staring out the window as the Benz pulled out of the driveway, unnaturally still, and Taejoon realized then that this would be the last time he ever saw his father.

He wanted to say something about it, but Octavio had turned around and asked cheerfully, "Wanna play something together?" so he decided not to.

Irina watched him like a hawk, following him closely everywhere he went, and it made him anxious and afraid to return to Octavio’s room at night. He acted robotically, gave in to every one of his prompts, and bit his tongue so hard he tasted blood every time he felt like speaking or sensed a change in his facial expression, afraid that she would catch him off-guard now that she was actively looking for it.

It had been inconvenient—he had planned on chipping Octavio’s phone so that he could always keep track of him even without security cameras, having no phone of his own and unable to call for him, but they had to put it off until last minute because of Irina, who seemed to be making him do far more chores than before, as if actively trying to keep him away from his boyfriend.

“Look, see this—” Taejoon was saying as they huddled in the corner of the hallway, pulled up on the tracking app and showing the other all of the permissions. “Just disable all of these, except for—”

Octavio shoved him away, grabbing his phone back before strolling leisurely down the hall, typing something on his phone. At the same time, Irina rounded the corner, carrying a large pile of laundry in her hands. She stopped, glancing at Taejoon, who stood idly, back ramrod straight and unblinking. She tilted her chin up at him and said, “You. Fold these, now.”

She turned her back on him and made her way downstairs, and Octavio shot him a look over his shoulder before rolling his eyes (or. well. eye) and walking back to his room.

Taejoon followed Irina, staring at the back of her head and plaited red hair as they made their way to the second floor. She entered an unoccupied room, the room she usually made him fold laundry in, as she was under the assumption that he could not enter Kishou’s room directly, and held the door open for him. He entered swiftly, and she shut it behind him.

Taejoon had no ill will towards Irina, specifically. She was annoying, but only because she did her job well—she had discovered the two of them, yes, and seemed highly suspicious of him, but he did not wish to harm her.

Yet there was a mounting sense of anxiety inside of him as she placed the basket of clothes on a table, and he stepped forward, reaching inside to pick up one of Adele’s shirts. Out of the corner of his eye he watched her fold clothes at a rapid speed, professional and perfect, blue gaze focused and intense. He bit the inside of his cheek and returned his attention to his own work, moving much slower, but just as perfect as hers.

He hated the amount of anxiety she was making him feel, the shivers going up his spine as his breath hitched in his throat. He was suddenly hyper-aware of his breathing, his sweating and the movement of his eyelids, all human, and it only served to make him more paranoid.

_One more day..._

_Tomorrow...tomorrow...tomorrow..._

Had he not already been on edge and trying his damndest to be as robotic as possible, he would have jumped when her hand suddenly flew out and hit his chest. A lesser man would have been knocked back by the force, but he remained firmly planted on his feet, going through the motions of folding clothes while he bit down on his tongue and tasted blood. 

She had clearly been trying to catch him off-guard, get him to react humanly with fear. A normal person would have jumped at the sudden hit, but he was practiced in nonreaction, so he kept folding clothes even as he felt his breathing get shorter, his fingers trembling almost imperceptibly.

“Stop,” Irina commanded. He was prompted to obey her, so he did, turning his head towards, hands frozen where they hovered in midair, clutching one of Kishou’s dress shirts. He met her eyes, fighting back the urge to ask ‘what?’ He wasn’t allowed to do that. He wasn’t allowed to speak unless spoken to.

Irina knew that. “What are you?”

_A human. Just like you._

“I am at your service,” he responded blandly. Like he was told to. His programming took root beneath his skin, and he started folding clothes again until Irina snatched the shirt from his hands and dismissed him. He turned on his heel, left the room, and climbed the stairs, holding his breath until he reached Octavio’s room, where he let it out, shaky.

 _Tomorrow_. One more day of scrutiny, and then it was all over.

* * *

“Take a bath with me.”

“I hate baths,” Taejoon responded, taking the hard-drive out from his neck. Mystik had sent over the floorplan of the Hammond lab they were going to today, and whenever he closed his eyes now, he could see the exact layout of it all. “You’re sitting in your own wet dirt. Take a shower instead.”

“Make me.”

Taejoon glanced over to where Octavio was standing in the doorway of his bathroom, towel bunched up and held against his chest, naked as the day he was born, though Taejoon had gotten used to it. Octavio didn’t budge, staring at him with his one good eye, so Taejoon got to his feet and crossed the room, ushered him towards the bathtub and leaned over to turn the shower on for him.

“There,” he said.

“But you have to stay and make sure I actually take it,” Octavio said, way too flirty for the day that was about to change it all. Taejoon arched an eyebrow and left him alone, hearing the other scoff behind him right before he closed the door. He wasn’t in the mood for any playful flirting at the moment; they needed to be serious and focused, because by tonight they would be on a dropship heading to Gaea and leaving this mess on Psamathe behind.

It was eight in the morning, four hours before the scheduled visit to Hammond, and he felt numb. The past several months of pretending and programming and secrecy were about to come to a grinding halt if they managed to pull this off—and that was a big _if._

They had had a little issue in regards to luggage—originally planning to go straight from the lab to the dropship, they had realized that if they wanted to do this secretly, they couldn’t ask Delilah to drive them. It wasn’t ideal to lug around Octavio’s suitcase all day, especially on the off-chance that it might get stolen, and he certainly couldn’t bring it to the lab lest someone notice it and ask questions, thus bringing suspicion onto him.

Octavio had suggested they ride his motorcycle to the lab with the luggage attached, but he didn’t want it to get stolen, and it would be harder to hide from the security cameras that way. They didn’t want anybody to know that they were planning to leave the planet—they wanted to buy as much time as possible.

So their plan now included stealing Taejoon’s source code and blueprints from the lab, riding the train back home, picking up his stuff, and then riding the bus to the hangar. The extra steps now included in their plan only made his uncertainty about its success rise, but he knew he couldn’t afford to have doubts now—it would only serve to increase his anxiety, and make slip-ups more likely.

He carried Octavio’s bags all the way downstairs, going the long way to avoid the rest of the staff, before placing them safely in the garage, making it easier for them to grab and go. He lifted the tarp that usually covered Octavio’s bike and instead draped it over his suitcase in the rare case that one of the maids should enter the garage and see it.

He stepped back into the main house and made his way back to Octavio’s room, darting into an unused closet on the second floor when he thought he heard Irina rounding a corner. When her footsteps had faded away, he jogged for the rest of his journey, wanting to get up as quickly as possible.

He crossed Octavio’s room to make sure they had grabbed both hard-drives, pausing when he saw that the syringes were missing too, as well as the two vials of stim he knew Octavio had in there.

Stim was a dangerous drug. Even if he hadn’t known much about it before, the database within him had whirred to life when he’d first caught sight of the neon liquid inside the glass, informing him that it was harmful, potentially lethal. An adrenaline-inducing concoction banned from three planets, a drug that made people run faster and hit harder. The type of adrenaline that pushed you past your limits, let you lift to your body’s fullest ability, and raised your heart-rate so much there ran a risk of a heart attack.

“Why do you have this?” He remembered asking Octavio weeks ago, trying his best to not sound confrontational, but worry was eating him up inside. Octavio had snatched the neon vials from him, looking one part guilty and one part angry.

“My dad manufactures it, so I stole some. I’ve only ever used it once, fuck off.”

The ensuing conversation that followed had gone on for six hours. Well, at least, it started and stopped a dozen times in those six hours, Taejoon trying to get Octavio to answer his questions and Octavio running away from him or shutting it down each time. But they _had_ eventually talked about it, and Octavio had said he would only save it for emergencies—whatever that means.

So he was concerned now about their absence. He turned to the bathroom, mouth opened to call for his boyfriend, but froze when he saw the door wide open, the light off, clearly unoccupied.

He turned on the spot, as if he’d somehow missed the other man when walking into the room, but he wasn’t there. A damp towel was strewn across the floor, and the clothes he’d set out for him were missing. Fearing that he had run off to take the stim, he rushed out of his room, padding down the stairs both as quietly and as quickly as possible.

He checked the media room, the game room, the kitchen, the pool, the garage, the piano room, everywhere—but he couldn’t find Octavio. He even closed his eyes and stood completely still, accessing every security camera inside the house, and didn’t see him. Growing steadily more panicked, he remembered something Mila liked doing when she was younger—climbing onto the roof of their foster homes so she could relax. He rushed out of the house, pausing in front of the mansion to scan the tiles above him, expecting to see a head of black hair there—but nothing.

How could he just lose a whole person? His boyfriend, most of all? Where the fuck could he have gone? Whirling around to see if the gate had been opened, he saw that it hadn’t. Just where the fuck-

A tanned hand waving at the corner of his eye caught his attention. He stared at where it was coming from—the window of a black Benz, rolled down just enough to allow a thin arm to poke out. It disappeared, and the window rolled down some more. It was Octavio, sitting in the drivers’ seat, and he felt relief take hold of his metal body.

“Ey, ‘Joon,” Octavio said, resting his hand nonchalantly on the wheel and grinning at him over a pair of sunglasses. He had taken off the eyepatch, and you could now clearly see his scar. “I think I got the suitcase thing sorted out.”

Taejoon knew, from both the database within him and also the fact that he was Octavio’s boyfriend, that the other man did not have a driver’s license.

“No.”

“Why not?!” Octavio sputtered indignantly. “Look, this way we don’t have to come back!”

“You don’t know how to drive,” Taejoon countered. “And they’re going to notice a whole fucking Benz missing.”

“Okay, but think about it this way: we take this and we avoid all the cameras. We can’t do that on the bus, or on a train! We’ll ditch the car near the hangar!” Octavio drummed his fingers impatiently against the wheel, pouting exaggeratedly, and fuck it was already working wonders on Taejoon, who felt his resolve crumbling.

“But...you can’t drive,” he said weakly.

“It can’t be that different from riding a bike,” Octavio said. “‘Sides, Ch...I mean, an old friend and I used to steal this thing all the time when we were kids. I mean, she did most of the driving, but...C’mon, it’ll be super cool! Like a road trip! With me, your boyfriend!”

Taejoon took a deep breath, arguing with himself.

_He can’t drive._

_But he looks so happy..._

_He can’t drive!!_

_But he’s so excited!_

“Fine,” Taejoon finally said, and Octavio pumped his fist and let out a quiet little _‘fuck yeah.’_ “But I’m going to drive if I think I need to.”

“Can _you_ drive?”

Having grown up where mostly everything he needed was conveniently within walking distance, no. But much like he had also not known how to repair a bike or check for concussions before he had this new body, he figured that the data within him would be helpful if he needed to drive.

Remembering his initial reason for panic, he held out his hand, and said, “Stim.”

Octavio’s good cheer quickly dissipated. “It’s for emergencies.”

“Where is it?” Taejoon asked, ignoring him, and with a scowl, Octavio lifted the center console, revealing two syringes and the two vials of stim inside a plastic baggie. Taejoon debated snatching it up, but didn’t want to anger the other man, especially if he was supposed to be driving. After much internal debate, he finally said, “It stays there. Don’t bring it inside with us.”

“But—”

“ _Octavio_.”

He could tell Octavio was biting on the inside of his cheek, hard, before he said reluctantly, “Okay.”

Taejoon walked back around the house towards the garage while Octavio went back up to his room, getting everything he needed. He purposely walked through the brush with his boyfriend’s suitcase in hand so that if one of the maids looked out the window, it would be harder to spot him.

Since Kishou and Adele were out of town, Delilah would likely have the weekend off, which meant it would take a while for anyone to notice that they’d taken the car. And even if they did, Octavio had apparently stolen it before—hopefully, they would assume that he had just taken it for a joy ride.

Five minutes after nine, they were both inside the car, Taejoon feeling anxious as he stared at the great windows of the Silva mansion, tall and foreboding. He remembered being on the opposite side of those windows six months ago, watching the sun rise over the gate, finally freeing himself from the hardcore set of rules programmed inside of him. 

Next to him, Octavio counted his money, starting over every time he reached ten before shoving it all in the center console. “Okay, I have, like, a hundred thousand dollars. That’s enough, right? I stole some from my dad’s room too, so I probably have extra.”

Though glad the other wasn’t taking an easily traceable card with him, the amount of cash he had was ridiculous. “I think that’s more than enough. Got the I.D.?”

Octavio held up Adele’s smiling face. “Yup.”

They went through everything again, and Octavio soon started getting impatient, so Taejoon stepped out of the car to open the gate for him. He watched nervously as the car started, convinced that one of the maids was going to come rushing out and shout at them to stop, but nothing of that sort happened. The Benz suddenly shot forward before coming to a stop so harsh it seemed to lurch forward on its wheels. It then started backing out, slowly at first, as if making sure it was going the correct direction, before speeding up and shooting out the front gate.

This was going to be a long drive, Taejoon thought to himself as he closed the gate after him, before jogging to the car and getting into the passenger’s side.

“Okay, I got this,” Octavio said, a high-pitched edge to his voice that almost sounded nervous—a foreign emotion that Taejoon hadn’t heard from him. “It’s not that different from riding a bike.”

Taejoon arched an eyebrow. “Do you want me t-”

“No! I got it.” Octavio clutched the wheel before stomping on the gas, and made the car swerve to the left, disappearing from the view of the mansion. “Wow. Guess I’m never going to see that again.”

A feeling similar to guilt made Taejoon’s throat close up. Neglectful and abusive childhood or not, he imagined that Octavio must have _some_ good memories in that house. He had invited friends over multiple times, turned the inside into his own personal skatepark more than once, and some part of him (probably naïve and foolish) hoped that his stepmoms hadn’t _all_ been that bad.

He was taking Octavio away from his home, much like he had forcibly been taken from his, but he knew there was a key difference—Octavio was doing this willingly. Taejoon had been kidnapped. 

But still, he felt bad, like he had rushed the man out of his home even though the other had been more eager to leave than he had.

“Gimme directions, man,” Octavio suddenly said, voice still high-pitched, but Taejoon didn’t know if it was still from nervousness or something else.

Taejoon gripped his seatbelt tightly, nervous, but told the other where to go. They would be driving in the opposite direction of the city, two hours out into the middle of nowhere, where the Hammond lab sat on a hilly plain, miles away from the suburbs just in case there was ever an accident on-site. The good thing was that they could take a freeway for most of the journey, with multiple lanes of road for Octavio to get a good grasp on driving without immediately endangering anyone.

After fifteen minutes, when the car hadn’t crashed or burned, and Octavio was managing just fine, Taejoon relaxed and took his eyes off the road, instead choosing to study his boyfriend.

He was dressed in a clean white button-up, which he had expressed distaste at, but Taejoon wanted him to not be wearing any easily-identifiable clothing, so he had pushed for him to wear it, but they both reached a compromise on the pants—he would only have to wear the slacks inside the lab, and could sit in his shorts until then and afterwards. And he wasn’t exactly complaining—he stared at Octavio’s muscled thighs for some time before turning his head away, pretending like he hadn’t.

“I can see you checking me out,” Octavio teased, looking at Taejoon, sunglasses sliding down his nose. His hair was slicked back and combed, though a few loose strands stuck out against his forehead, unable to be tamed.

“So what if I am?” He asked dryly, and Octavio’s grin widened. “Eyes on the road.”

“I get it. I’m sexy.” The other’s nose snubbed a little as he faced the road again, switching lanes to get around a truck, which was evidently going too slow for his taste. “Even if I look like a bank accountant right now.”

“Except for the shorts,” Taejoon said.

“Yeah, the shorts are good.”

They talked easily, freely, as if they weren’t heading to a Hammond lab, run by the Syndicate, the people responsible for Taejoon’s current state of being. As if they weren’t planning to steal from it, and run away to a different planet. As if everything wasn’t about to change.

After nearly an hour of driving, Octavio suddenly swerved the car into the farthest right-hand lane, taking an exit at breakneck speed. Imagining that if he had been in his old body all of the hair on the back of his neck would be standing up, Taejoon snapped, “What are you doing?”

“We’ve got, like, two hours to kill,” Octavio said, stomping on the brakes to slow the car down enough to a passable, but still fast, speed. “And I’m thirsty, and I saw a gas station.”

Octavio pulled them into a parking lot of a gas station, though unlike the dingy ones back on Gaea, this one seemed sleek and Benz-worthy. He parked the car as far away from the doors and their security cameras as possible, almost hitting two other parked cars in the process, before reaching into the center console to pull out a face mask that he used to cover his nose and mouth.

“Want anything?” Octavio asked. “They have slushies!”

“I’m fine,” Taejoon sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. _That_ had been stressful. “...Need gas?”

“Nope.”

“Bathroom?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Okay. Keep your head low.”

His boyfriend gave him a two-fingered salute before jogging into the gas station, holding a wad of cash in his hands. Taejoon watched him go before sighing and getting out, leaning against the Benz as he took in deep, steadying breaths. Though he didn’t get cramped in this body, he still felt tightly wound-up. The clean air this far away from the city was helping him, but not much.

He half-wanted to change into the spare clothes he had brought—that green jacket, white shirt, and cuffed jeans—but knew that he couldn’t until after they left the lab. He would be accompanying Octavio as his bodyguard, and needed to look the part.

And speaking of him, he came jogging back out, holding a large drink in his hand with red slushy inside, seeming excited even with the mask and sunglasses on. Instead of going straight back in the car, however, he walked around to where Taejoon was leaning against it, arms crossed and eyebrows raised. His boyfriend slid his mask down before standing on his tippy-toes and kissing him right on the mouth.

“What’s the occasion?” Taejoon asked when he pulled away, feeling a pleasant tingling sensation at the contact.

“Just felt like kissing you,” Octavio said, before taking a sip of his slushy, and then kissing him again. “How do I taste?”

“Gross.”

“I’m trying to be romantic,” Octavio complained, and Taejoon pressed his mouth into a straight line, trying not to laugh. “Fuck, dude.”

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay, I just.” Octavio took another sip of his slushy, his ears slowly starting to turn as red as the drink inside. “...I love you.”

Feeling like his brain had stopped working, Taejoon opened and closed his mouth several times, staring at his boyfriend, before pushing off the car and turning away from him. What. He turned around again to see Octavio still standing there, face now an unflattering ruddy color. What.

“Stop,” Octavio whined. “Is it that weird?”

“No, I just-” Taejoon ran a hand through his hair, a weird giddy feeling taking hold of him. “It was unexpected.”

 _I love you,_ Octavio had said, and it replayed, over and over again, as they got back into the car, the red in Octavio’s cheeks fading to a pink instead as they pulled out of the parking lot. _I love you,_ he had said, in complete seriousness. Taejoon didn’t think he’d ever heard him say those words before. Had he? He didn’t remember. _He’d_ certainly never said it before, but it was at the tip of his tongue now—and yet he still didn’t say it as he directed Octavio back onto the freeway, a little over an hour left in the journey.

Did he love Octavio? A month ago, hell, even a couple of weeks ago, the answer to that would have been complicated. The situation itself was complicated—constant self-doubts and internal spirals, the lingering question of _‘is it real or is it programming’_ , anxiety over how Octavio felt about him in return. Was he a human, or a plaything? Something new and risky for the heir to try out, or a person to be taken seriously, to have their feelings accounted for?

He cared for Octavio’s feelings and wellbeing, but did he _love_ him? He didn’t know. He hadn’t known, at least, not until now, sitting in this car and replaying the other’s words in his head, over and over again. He really felt happier than he had in months, and it was almost embarrassing that this was the reason why. He could almost imagine Mila teasing him and calling him corny, but he meant it. So he said suddenly, after ten minutes of silence,

“I love you too.”

The car swerved a little, as if the words had startled it. 

“Haha,” Octavio said, voice high-pitched once again. “Cool.”

Taejoon smiled at him, fond, the other's face back to the red color it’d been before, before Octavio turned on the radio and cranked it up loud, as if that would stop him from looking at him.

The closer they got to the lab, the more anxious Taejoon started to feel, draining him of his good mood like a leech. They eventually exited off the freeway, taking a road with only two lanes over a series of hills that rose and fell slowly. The morning sun was slowly rising to its afternoon high, and at the first building they saw, Octavio pulled the car to a stop and got out.

“Where are you going?” Taejoon called.

“Bathroom!” Octavio yelled back, jogging inside of the diner. It was a shack-looking place, with two broken neon signs hanging in the windows.

Despite its rundown appearance, four expensive parked cars sat innocently in the dirt-covered parking lot, all with Hammond license plates. He wondered, considering the location of this diner in the middle of nowhere, if Hammond employees were the ones keeping it afloat. A convenient lunch spot. They couldn’t be too far from the lab, then.

When Octavio came back out they started driving again, and after a minute, a large satellite came into view. The closer they got, the more things they saw—towers and power-lines, clusters of buildings, all connected to a larger glass building. An observatory sat to the left in a distant field. A large parking lot sat to the right, but only with about half a dozen cars, making it look lonely and empty.

“This place even _looks_ boring,” Octavio commented as he turned down the road that would take them to the parking lot. “You’d think a place that makes robots would look cooler.”

Taejoon chose not to say anything, staring at the glass building. Truth be told, years ago, he would have killed for the opportunity to work at a place like this—a comfy office job, and a place to put his brain to work. He thought of the expensive cars back at that diner, and wondered how much Hammond employees got paid. How many months worth of rent were those cars for him? No, how many _years_? If he and Mila had pooled together their collective salaries, they could have maybe bought it in three years, but it would take them even longer than that to pay it off.

“Earth to ‘Joon,” Octavio said, breaking him out of his thoughts, and he blinked out of his stupor, giving his boyfriend a look. “C’mon, let’s goooo.”

“Got everything you’ll need?” Taejoon asked, already schooling his expression to one of robotic indifference.

“Yep! I’m tired of waiting, isn’t it killing you? Let’s just go already!”

And with that, Octavio was out of the car, already jogging towards the building. He had to be called back to put on his slacks, grumbling as he did so, before they set off towards the lab together, hard-drives and printed I.D.s hidden away in their clothes—Octavio’s tucked into the waistband of his boxers in case they had him empty his pockets and Taejoon’s tucked into the fine segments and compartments of his metal arms. He had checked and double-checked his boyfriend to make absolutely sure he did have everything, and as they got closer to the building, it got closer to noon. Right on the dot.

A slender woman with short black hair greeted them at the door, shaking Octavio’s hand, but ignoring Taejoon completely as she said, “Mr. Silva. You might remember me as Omela Khan, but please, just call me Omela.”

“Good afternoon,” Octavio said, switching to English, and the language change plus sudden formality made him sound different. “Where’s Hans?”

“Mr. Brandt is unable to be with us today,” Omela said apologetically. “However, I, or another senior member, will be more than happy to give you a private tour of the facility.”

“You will?” Octavio asked, and Taejoon thought she was a good choice—she was roughly Octavio’s height, and about as thin as him, not as hulking as that guy from the party. It would make Taejoon feel better if they were with someone he could easily overpower if it came to it.

She led them across the large, glassy lobby that was filled with bright sunlight, rainbows cast on the walls and sleek white tables and couches dotting the area here and there. One of the secretaries printed out a visitor's pass for Octavio, which he draped over his neck, before they asked him to empty his pockets into a tray.

His phone, wallet, and a small pack of gummy worms went inside before they had him step through a metal detector. Taejoon knew it wouldn’t pick up the hard-drive, but he still felt anxious as the other strolled through it, somehow looking at home in a building he’d never been in before. Rich people perks, he supposed.

When they gave Octavio his stuff back, he turned to Omela and asked, “So, can we look at everything? Even the labs?”

“Of course," she answered with a smile, before leading them to a set of doors. Just outside of them, however, she stopped, and looked at Taejoon for the first time. “I’m afraid that your guard can not accompany you inside.”

“What?” Octavio asked, arching an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Company policy,” Omela told him. “And aside from that, well...they go a little haywire once they get inside the labs. You can never have too many of them active in one spot—all the interfering signals and data waves can sometimes make them act out. Don’t worry though, it’s rare, but it’s just a precaution we take.”

Octavio shot him a look, but Taejoon’s expression didn’t change even though he felt dread inside of him. His boyfriend told him in a commanding tone of voice to go wait in the car, and he bowed, as he was prompted to do, before leaving the glassy building. Though he had anticipated that they might need to split up at some point, he hadn’t expected it to happen so soon. He made his way to the parking lot, deciding to stand near the car for a couple of minutes before finding his own way into the building.

Closing his eyes, he pictured the map Mystik had given him of the layout—the building Octavio was in was where most of the offices were. The actual labs were the many buildings to the side, connected by outside hallways and spread over a large expanse of hilly plain. He could go inside there himself and search while security was preoccupied with Octavio.

He approached the main glassy building once again so he could get a better signal, sensing the security system inside as he stood about two hundred feet away from it. Being apart from Octavio after maintaining such closeness to him for several months was making him anxious, and he wanted to check up on him, so he closed his eyes and allowed himself to enter the security system.

What happened next had never before occurred—with a flash of pain his vision whited out and he crumpled to the ground, feeling as if he had been punched square in the face. Liquid flowed freely from both of his nostrils and he wiped at it with his sleeve, peeling his eyes open to see an inky black substance, darker than even his black suit jacket.

_What?_

_What just happened?.._

He had been forced out of the security system, and had suffered a physical reaction from it, and he had no idea why. It had never happened before, not once. Was it because he was too close to the labs? Had the interference thing been true?

Getting to his feet a little shakily, he crossed to the opposite side of the building, as far away from the labs as possible, before closing his eyes and trying to find Octavio again. When it happened this time he was more prepared for it, but it still came as a shock—hunched over, he gave a loud gasp of pain, more thick black liquid coming like an oily nosebleed.

Okay. So he couldn’t find Octavio in the security system. That was fine—this was fine. He could still somewhat sense the other due to the chip in his phone, even if he couldn’t pinpoint his exact location, or see his current state, or how well he was doing, or if he needed help, or...

 _Quit panicking,_ a voice that sounded like Mystik’s told him. _Get on with the plan._

Right. The plan. That’s what they were here for, split up or not.

He staunched the liquid streaming steadily from his nose with his sleeve as he made his way to the cluster of buildings he knew housed the actual labs, the hot afternoon sun beating down on him and warming his skin.

He found a door and gently took his sleeve away from his face to see if anything else was coming out of his nose, but the black liquid had stopped. Rolling up his other sleeve, he carefully slid Adele’s paper I.D. out of a segment of his arm and held it up to a small black scanner beside the door. The little red light on it turned green, and he heard the door unlock.

Pushing it open, Taejoon was met with a draft of freezing air—he knew they kept it like this so as to not overheat the servers or countless metal bodies inside, but it still stung bitterly at his cheeks as he shut the door behind him, the hallway no longer illuminated by golden sun, but by red overhead lights. His head was hurting a little from the security fiasco, but it was nothing he couldn’t handle as he walked swiftly down the hall, past what he knew were supply closets and bathrooms.

He went through a pair of double doors that took him into a large, circular room, more brightly lit than the hallway, but still with red lights, giving the place an eerie glow. Nobody was here because it was the weekend, which gave him more time to walk up to the computers sitting on a circular table in the middle of it all, dozens of wires running from the monitors to the walls, a tripping hazard for sure.

As he approached he realized they weren’t actually computers because the _computer_ part was missing—they were just monitors. Not even a keyboard was attached. They must be for displaying things, then.

Out of curiosity he turned two on, waiting for the screens to boot up, and when they did he was greeted with security footage of the exact room he was in. He wasn’t too bothered about it—Mystik was waiting on the sidelines, deleting all footage of him from a safe distance. Something he could have done himself had he not been inexplicably blocked from accessing this place’s security, but it was whatever. He turned on more monitors to reveal even more security footage, seeing that the labs were well and truly empty. Nobody else was here; he had the place all to himself.

He left the circular room through another pair of double doors, but paused down the hallway, wincing. The pain in his head was getting worse, like there was mounting pressure inside, and a faint drone was buzzing in his ears. Taking a deep breath, he continued, trying not to let it get to him.

The next room Taejoon found had dozens of robotic parts stored inside, all labeled for convenience in cubby holes or in plastic baggies. He only gave this room a cursory glance, knowing full well they wouldn’t store something as important as his brain in a spare parts closet.

The room after that was the same, and the room after that had fully-assembled androids and MRVNs inside. He paused before them, seeing the similarities in his own metal body and one of the faceless things in front of him, frowning.

As he stared at its bronze and chrome body, another flash of pain went through his head, but thankfully unaccompanied by a nosebleed. He massaged his temples, which were starting to throb, and left the room on slightly shaky legs—which was how he knew the pain must be severe, because his robotic legs were usually very steady, allowing him to take even the harshest of blows.

Starting to feel a little impatient, he closed his eyes to picture the map Mystik had given him, hoping it would give him another clue, but his mind drew a blank. The pain in his head was too great for him to focus, and with grit teeth he found himself standing in front of a door that needed Adele’s I.D. again. He scanned it before pushing through, staggering a little, as this action only served to worsen his pain.

He went through a brightly-lit hallway with windows on the walls; one of the outside hallways that connected the labs to one another. Away from the overbearing coldness and redness of the first lab, he tried picturing the map again, and this time was successful. There were about four other buildings to go through, and he could vaguely sense Octavio still in the glass building, so his tour hadn’t yet come out here. He still had time.

In this lab there was yet another circular room with security monitors that he checked just to be safe, this time using them to see which hallways to bypass completely without wasting time and which ones to take a look in.

As he lightly jogged through a maze of passages, the pressure in his head was reaching its peak. He felt like it was going to burst, and his vision was starting to blur—he had no idea what was happening, but it was making his breathing short with panic and paranoia.

Taejoon slowed to a stop in front of a bathroom, bending over on his knees as the buzzing grew louder, a high-pitched tone droning beneath the buzz, layered together just to make his ears ring. With a gasp he straightened up, putting a steadying hand on the wall as he held Adele’s I.D. up to another scanner, and found himself in the room he had been looking for.

Half a dozen computers, actual computers, sat before him. A room to the left showcased a million blinking lights—the servers, with the _whirrrr_ of several fans inside. Things that looked sort of like lockers were mounted on the walls, with red lights above them, but he didn’t know what they meant. Choosing to ignore them for the time being, he approached what looked like the main computer and turned it on.

He was greeted with a series of numbers, and then a password screen. Ignoring it, he took one of the hard-drives out from a compartment in his arm, and plugged it into the computer. While it did its thing, he turned the rest of the computers on, waiting for them to boot up and douse the room in white light that mixed with the red one overhead.

The first monitor he had turned on flashed green before he was looking at its desktop, dozens of files on display. He read the names of them all even through the pain in his head and the blurriness of his eyes, searching for anything that seemed familiar, but found nothing. He rotated through the rest of the computers, the frustration of not finding anything mixing with the pain in his head and causing a few tears to run down his cheeks as he mumbled to himself.

The last computer unlocked, and he took a step back, waiting for the hard-drive to do its thing and search for any mention of his name. He paced in front of them, waiting for a pop-up to appear on a screen—and nearly screamed in joy when it did, on the last computer to have been unlocked.

He rushed to sit in front of the computer and opened up the file, trained eyes scanning the code. A little progress bar popped up beneath it, showing that it was downloading onto the hard-drive already. Good, but he looked through it just to make sure it was what he needed. 

Every string of numbers he read only served to make him more hopeful as he realized that yes, this was exactly what he had needed, and pain in his head be damned, he wanted to cheer and cry at the same time. It was finally a reality, the thing he’d been planning to find for weeks, and when it finished downloading he pulled the hard-drive from the computer and stored it safely in his arm.

He deleted the file, truly deleted it, but knew that Hammond was better than that and would have a back-up—he would have to hard-reset the servers to erase _all_ of their files for good.

He stepped into the server room, greeted by a blast of cool air from the amount of fans inside, and walked up to a panel on the wall showing a million blinking lights. He was glad he was the one to do this, having previously worked in IT—he imagined Octavio wouldn’t have been able to decipher the countless buttons and switches on the wall.

Taejoon studied everything before him, right eye so blurry that it was basically useless. Taking a deep breath to try and distract himself from his headache, he reached over and flipped several switches, before lifting a protective plastic square over a yellow button that was labeled _RESET—DO NOT PRESS!_

He pressed the button.

Instantly, the tower of servers behind him went dark. He turned his head to see that the computers in the next room had restarted, and the Hammond logo appeared on their screens, as if they were starting up for the first time. He stepped out into the room, planning to make sure that he had really reset them—when the red lights over those lockers switched to green, and they slid open.

Taejoon knew, before they had even fully stepped out, that he was in trouble.

_Stalkers._

Great, hulking robots, some armed with guns, and others armed with only their powerful fists. The red lights on their faces seemed to glow hatefully, and with a feeling of intense dread he realized he was surrounded by these literal war machines. 

He turned on his heel, panicked, because this had not been mentioned at all—none of his research, none of Mystik’s, had told them that there was literally an army of fucking _Stalkers_ at the ready in case the servers reset.

He bolted across the room, ducking under the outstretched arm of one of them, and pushed against a set of double doors, tripping out into the hallway as the pain in his head reached its explosive high. With a shout he tumbled to the ground, vision white and black oil flowing freely onto the ground, pooling beside him. He couldn’t even sense Octavio anymore, couldn’t even move due to the pain, but he knew he had to, or else—

 _Or else what?_ He thought to himself, the voice in his head steadily calm despite the panic and fear taking hold of him. _Or else you’ll die?_

Crawling forward desperately, he tried to get to the next set of doors, a pair that required an I.D., so that the Stalkers hopefully couldn’t follow him through—but he sensed a huge metal hand grab his leg, and he was forcefully yanked down the hallway with a shout.

Taejoon was then pulled to his feet, arms gripped harshly behind him by the Stalkers, forcibly held still by them. They pulled and pulled and pulled, until suddenly he lost all connection to his right arm, and he realized that they had pulled it clean off.

It didn’t hurt, but it was shocking nonetheless. He stared at the Stalker who had broken off his arm, panting through the pain in his head and the fear taking hold of him. No, he had to calm down. He couldn't let this plan be foiled by robots; Octavio was waiting for him, Mystik was waiting for him, _Gaea_ was waiting for him.

He needed to fight his way through the Stalkers, and run in the direction he had been coming from—maybe that would lessen the pain in his head, and give him a better chance to escape.

He kicked his leg out powerfully, managing to successfully shove one of the Stalkers away with his robotic strength, but it recovered quickly as he was trying to break his other arm free from the Stalker holding him without _actually_ breaking his remaining arm. It was hard to do so one-handed, and he ducked as the Stalker he had kicked swung its own arm out at him, trying to take his head clean off his shoulders, but it missed and hit the Stalker holding him instead—giving him enough time to break free and scramble across the room. 

But he realized, halfway, that he couldn’t leave—not yet. The arm they had taken off had both hard-drives inside, and if he left it behind, this whole ordeal would have been for nothing. He eyed the Stalkers in the room, all turning towards him slowly, menacingly. He doubted he could fight them like this, one-handed and with a headache, but they must have an off-button somewhere...

He spotted it above their heads—a panel, connected to the lockers that they had just come out of. If he could lead them away from it, he could double around and press it, and disable them, and—

This time, when the flash of white came, it made him collapse right where he stood. Cradling his head with one hand and giving a shout, Taejoon curled up in a ball as pain assaulted not just his head, but every part of him, even the robotic ones he shouldn’t be able to feel pain in. The place where his arm had been ripped off hurt the most, almost like it had been flesh and bone, not steel and wiring. It felt _real._

The pain was so white-hot that tears were pushing past his shut eyes, squeezed tightly from the pressure of it all, and the ordeal was so physically excruciating that he almost didn’t hear the voice now speaking to him.

“Ah, Mr. Park. I must commend you for the great amount of effort you’ve put into pretending, but quite frankly, you’re incredibly naïve to think that we had no idea of your activities these past few months. Worry not—it will all be over soon.”

The last thing Taejoon Park felt before his second death was yet another white-hot pulse of pain, and his throat aching as he cried out the name _Octavio._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once i get the next chapter out this will officially be the longest fic ive ever put on the internet. yeah my dumbass cryptane-deprived self did that
> 
> oh yeah for anyone who hasnt played titanfall 2: stalkers are little bitches
> 
> hope u enjoyed!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hewwo!! originally this chapter was 13k words but i split it up bc holy hell thats super long
> 
> i'll post the next chapter next saturday!!! ty for reading !!! ;w;
> 
> tws for this chapter:  
> child abuse  
> deadnaming
> 
> spoileryish kinda tws:  
> octane has complicated feelings towards his abuser and they hug which i know can make some ppl uncomfortable so just a heads up that happens, also some like 'gaslighting' language is used/i.e. thinking that it wasn't all bad or that he deserved it

“Alejandra.”

“Octavio,” he corrected, sour.

His father raised both eyebrows, momentarily confused, before his expression relaxed, and he said, “I’m sorry, I forgot. Octavio.”

Octavio really believed that he had genuinely forgotten, and it was almost worse than intentionally deadnaming him, but he decided not to say anything about it, choosing instead to snap the beads around his wrist as his father continued speaking. 

“You’re graduating high school soon. I know you’ve had some academic troubles, but Ms. Rossi is still willing to tutor you once you get into university,” his father droned, and Octavio tugged hard at the bracelet, pulling it as far as it would go, before letting it hit his wrist. _Snap._

“And what will I be majoring in, father?” He asked sarcastically, already knowing the answer. His life had been planned for him before he'd even been born.

“Medicine and business,” his father replied, either not picking up on or choosing to ignore his sarcastic voice.

He turned his laptop around to give Octavio a good look at the university website he’d pulled up, sleek and boasting some famous alumni. He gave it a glance before focusing on some point over his father’s shoulder, shifting from foot to foot as the other man kept talking. Words, just jumbles of them, streaming out of his mouth with no indiscernible end. 

Ms. Rossi, he knew, was planning to quit as soon as she had enough money to retire to the countryside. He guessed that was fair—the woman had been an over-glorified babysitter for most of his life, whenever one of his nannies got sick of taking care of him, and he was pretty sure she was at the end of her rope. He commended her; she’d lasted a hell of a lot longer than a lot of the people in his life.

_Snap._

Still, though, she was going to be yet another person who had abandoned him. They always did, in the end. Everyone who had ever interacted with him had had something wrong with them, selfish or intolerant, so they chose to leave him. Ms. Rossi was just another example of that.

“Octavio? Are you listening?” His father’s voice sounded like gears grinding, and Octavio snapped the beads once again. They were multi-colored, a gift Ajay had bought him for his birthday last year. Green, silver, black, and red. His favorite colors.

Ajay was the only person he had.

"Octavio?" His father repeated.

“I am,” Octavio finally mumbled, still not meeting his father's eyes.

“What did I just say, then?”

“The usual.”

“Which is?”

“Blah blah, I don’t have a choice, blah blah, run the company.”

His father’s nostrils flared, and he smirked to himself.

“This is _important,_ Ale—Octavio.”

“For who?” Octavio challenged. 

_Snap. Snap._

“It’s going to look good for you.” His father got to his feet then, and Octavio scowled at his outfit. He was still wearing his casual vacation shoes—typical of him to leave the planet for a couple of months and only come back to tell him what to do. Typical of his father to ignore his existence until it came to business and the carefully constructed layout of his life that Octavio had had no say in planning.

“No, it’s going to look good for _you._ ” _Snap._ “Because that’s all that matters, right? Appearances? _‘My son’s in university now, isn’t that great?’_ ”

His father didn’t say anything for a long time, and Octavio glared at him. He would rather be doing a million things other than this—playing video games, checking out those dirt tracks his friend had told him about, playing a prank on the maids, hitting up Ajay and talking shit for a couple of hours—anything that didn’t involve standing in his father’s office, being told what to do. Being told how to best make his father look good. Or, at least, not a complete failure of a parent.

The elder Silva silently picked up the framed photograph sitting at the corner of his desk, and this time when Octavio hooked his finger around the bracelet he did it so harshly that he scratched the inside of his wrist with his nail, leaving a dark red mark.

“Your mother would have wanted this for you,” his father said, setting the picture back down, and Octavio’s bracelet snapped in half, the rubber string giving way with his sharp tug.

The beads scattered to the ground with little _click-click-click_ noises, rolling underneath his father’s desk, beneath his bookshelf, across the hardwood floors. Little spots of color on the pure white landscape of his father’s office.

“Shut up,” Octavio said, angry, and swung his hand out, purposely knocking his mother’s photograph to the ground along with the beads. There was the sound of glass shattering, and his father got to his feet so quickly then that his chair scraped across the ground with an awful screech.

He wasted no time in bolting out of the room, slamming the office door shut behind him as he stomped up the steps to his room. He almost accidentally knocked Fernanda over as he barreled past her, but paid no mind to her shout as he locked himself in his room, heart pounding with anger.

He pressed his ear close to the door, listening to see if his father was following him up, the slightest bit paranoid. His father only ever really hit him when he was drunk, but he’d done it while sober too, even if that had been a long time ago. And maybe he deserved it this time around, breaking his mother’s photograph, but he was pissed off, and the anger followed him even as he ranted to his best friend about it hours later, on the phone and playing games at the same time.

He and Ajay had always been close—as a child he'd constantly been paired up with his dad's colleagues' kids, but Ajay was the only one who had stuck around. While she hadn’t ever really understood the hatred he felt towards his father, she was sympathetic to his plight anyways. She was a good friend, even if her solutions to problems were like, _logical,_ and all that boring shit.

“O,” Ajay said when he had simmered down, and he heard her open up what might have been a bag of chips. “Just be honest with him. Tell him you wanna study something else.”

“But I don’t _want_ to study anything else,” Octavio complained, accidentally dying and having to restart the level. “And he'd never let me, anyways. I _have_ to do med school, or else."

"You don't know that."

"Uh, yeah I do."

"You haven't even tried," she pointed out. She was sympathetic to his troubles, but she _also_ always tried to 'see it' from his father's point of view, and give him the benefit of the doubt, so he ranted some more, speaking rapidly.

"I fucking hate it here, Ajay! I don’t want to go to school, I don’t want to run the company, hell, I don’t even want to live in this stupid house anymore. You know Irina snooped in my things the other day? _Huh?_ ”

Ajay sounded both mortified and curious as she asked, “Did she find the...y’know.”

“Yes! She did!” He was so angry at the memory of it that he died again. “Ugh.”

He paused his game, flopping onto his back and letting out a sigh. When she didn’t respond to him for a long while and he heard the sound of her still eating chips, he said, “Amiga?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re gonna get out of here together, right?”

He wanted her to say yes, but he knew the dream was childish, something they’d thought of when they were kids.

They’d run away, live in an apartment with a million dogs and rabbits, and do whatever the hell they wanted. One day they’d become rich and successful, just like their parents but _away_ from their parents, and they could rub it in their faces. He’d be richer than his dad one day, all without having to attend fucking _med school_ , and he’d do it by doing whatever _he_ wanted. It was his perfect revenge fantasy. 

“One day,” Ajay told him after a considerable pause, and he felt relieved. “One day, we won’t have to deal with any of them anymore."

"Just you and me, chica. You and me against the rest of the world."

"Yeah..." She then changed the subject rather quickly. "You comin' to class tomorrow?”

He scowled. “No.”

“We have a test.”

“Yeah, but it’s _English._ ”

They went back and forth for a little while more, before he hung up and stared at his TV screen, which had gone dim from inactivity. He could hear Irina pacing outside of his door, perhaps having waited for his conversation to finish, and this was proven when after a few seconds, a tentative knock came.

“Dinner’s ready,” she told him, sounding almost nervous, which wasn't a good sign regarding what mood his father was currently in.

“How long have you been out there?” He asked, but she didn’t respond, and he was tempted to throw his phone at something, knowing his conversation had been listened to. She’d probably tell the elder Silva too, being the narc she was, but he probably wouldn’t care that Octavio had spent the better part of a half hour talking shit about him.

His father didn’t care about anything that he did, so long as he wasn’t making him look bad to any of his business partners.

He considered skipping out on dinner, but he hadn’t eaten since yesterday, for no reason other than simply forgetting to. He plugged his phone into his charger, almost dead from the time he’d spent talking to Ajay, and told himself that one day, he’d get out of here. Ajay was one of the only people he had left, and he knew she wouldn’t abandon him. One day, they’d leave all of this behind, and he could be free.

One day.

* * *

Octavio loved Taejoon.

It was a weird feeling, one he didn't know how exactly to put into words, but it was true. He loved him. Loving him was _his_ choice, a decision _he_ made without anyone else's input or planning, and it was _fantastic_. It was freeing. It was _his._

It took him a while to realize it, though. Weeks of private kisses in the corners of the halls, hidden in nooks and crannies Octavio had discovered in this mansion after twenty-one years of living in it. Countless nights of video games and dirt bikes and just _talking_ , like he and Ajay used to, but this time the person he was venting to saw it _all,_ and didn't feel the need to give his father or anyone else the benefit of the doubt. Taejoon _understood_ him, and he'd never had that before. It was refreshing.

So he quickly became attached to him, and everything he stood for. Defiance of his father, taking the thing meant to ensure he followed his pre-planned future and flipping it so Taejoon was on _his_ terms now. The fact that he kissed him, and held him, and did _other_ things with him without getting told to stop, or to slow down, or do something else, was exhilarating. This relationship was _his,_ and so was Taejoon.

"You're so clingy," his boyfriend had remarked to him once, spending time with him one lazy afternoon on the couch. Octavio normally hated being so still, but with Taejoon, nothing ever seemed _slow._

"And?" He remembered asking defensively, wrapping his arms tighter around the other man's metal torso. An ugly fear was nagging at the back of his head perpetually: _what if he leaves me what if he leaves me what if he leaves me..._

He didn't want to let go, and was afraid that the other man noticing his clinginess would lead to him pushing him off.

"Nothing." Taejoon wrapped his arms around him, hands settling at his waist, gentle somehow despite being made of metal and strong enough to break bones. "I was just making a note."

He felt his ears burn red, an awful tell everyone picked up on, and bit his lower lip. He knew he was attached to Taejoon at this point, perhaps more than he should be to someone who didn't have a real body, but the word _love_ had not yet crossed his mind. Not until that day he'd gotten angry, irrationally so, at Taejoon.

He justified his anger to himself, over and over, steaming silently like he always did when he was mad. He paced his room, kicked his chair, threw the clothes he'd just bought for him in the trash, did everything he could to not actually _deal_ with the problem.

Conflict was never solved in the Silva household, and apologies were never given. Today would be no different, except his stupid ADHD brain decided to _ruminate_ on the subject, forcing him to think of the situation, over and over and over. 

Why was he even so mad in the first place? He knew what Taejoon truly meant, and yet, it had hurt. 

Octavio had thought he was getting pretty used to people leaving him. He had thought he'd grown tougher skin when Ajay Che, his best friend in the whole world, had betrayed him. But evidently that was not the case, and he was frustrated with himself for not being able to figure out why.

The realization came to him when he woke up on the couch, covered in a blanket he had definitely not put on himself, and still thinking of Taejoon. It came like a car crash: abrupt, sudden, with a screeching of wheels and brakes as he realized _oh._

He knew the answer now, and it was embarrassing to admit, having never told a person _I love you_ in his life, but he did. He loved Taejoon, and he didn't want him to go. To stop caring about him.

To leave him.

So he went to do something he'd never really done before—genuinely apologize. He was going to be awkward about it, but Taejoon was different from everyone else in this house, and deserved more than the typical _'ignore the conflict until everyone forgets about it'_ treatment. He didn't want Taejoon to get mad at him either for ignoring him, so he would do it, even if he could hardly get the words out and he had just woken up and felt woozy.

He would apologize, but he didn't think he'd be able to admit that he loved him yet. Maybe he would tell him one day, but today was not that day.

* * *

“Your mother and I are leaving today.”

“Step-mom,” Octavio corrected, sour.

His father gave him a look, but didn’t say anything, perhaps still caught off-guard by the eyepatch. He’d physically recoiled when he had opened the door to his office to let Octavio in, evidently surprised by his appearance, which gave Octavio a twisted sense of satisfaction. The aim of the eyepatch had been to guilt all of those directly or indirectly responsible for the scar over his eye, and he was glad that it seemed to be working.

He was aware that, should everything go to plan, this would be the last time they would see each other. His father didn’t know it yet, but by tomorrow night Octavio would be leaving this shithole, even if the details were drastically different than those originally planned all those years ago.

( _Fuck, don't think about her._ )

Let the last time his father see him be the sight of Octavio wearing an eyepatch and a crop top and every imaginable color he could, standing out against the drab white of everything else. He was about to escape this suffocating life obsessed with perfection and appearances, and his father was none the wiser.

Octavio almost wished he could tell him the truth right now— _I burned my med books and I’m fucking the robot you hired to make sure I study them and now we’re running away together and I’m going to become a streamer_ —just so he could see the way his face would contort like he did when he was furious but trying not to show it. He wished he could, and he almost did, but he pinched himself as a reminder. _Shut the fuck up for once in your life, Silva._

His father crossed his arms, leaning against his desk, before saying, “Mr. Brandt from Hammond Robotics called me.”

Octavio feigned ignorance, but his foot started tapping against the hardwood floor involuntarily. “Who?”

“Hans Brandt. I’m not stupid, Octavio, and neither are you.” His father scowled, before glancing to the corner of his desk, where the photograph of Malinalli Silva usually sat.

It wasn’t there, though, currently stuffed in Octavio’s suitcase, and he felt a shudder crawl up his spine as his father kept staring at the empty corner. The other man showed no sign of remembering the incident, and he hoped that him suddenly noticing the picture of his late wife missing wouldn’t jog his memory in fear of getting hit again, or his father discovering that he had packed his suitcase.

Thankfully, though, he didn’t say anything about it, though his eyebrows did furrow as he looked back at Octavio.

“I know you’re going to see about an internship tomorrow. I just wish you had told me.”

“Why?” Octavio asked, clasping his hands behind his back so that his father wouldn’t see the way his nails were digging into his palms, so harshly they must be drawing blood. “So you can force me to not go?”

“Of course not,” his father said, frowning even more. “I’m quite upset, actually. I wish you had told me that this is what you wanted to do.”

Momentarily stunned, Octavio tried to think of a biting remark to say, but his father continued talking, giving him no time to say anything.

“A job at Hammond is respectable. It’s not the company, but you could be the link between the two.” The unsaid words of _even after I divorce Adele_ hung in the air between them. “How long has this been something you wanted?”

He hadn’t ever considered it, not really. He liked taking things apart, liked seeing how they worked, but an office job sounded unbearable, and his grades at school had been too low for a spot in the lab, so as a whole it was out of the question. But he thought about it for a moment, willing no change to his facial expression, but he could feel his eyebrows furrowing just like his father’s, before he finally lied, “A while.”

His father then did something he hadn’t done in nearly a decade:

He hugged him.

Octavio was shocked for a multitude of reasons. The fact that his father seemed so willing to just... _not_ make him run the company was staggering. Even if it was for a fake job he was only pretending to be interested in, the fact that he hadn’t called Hans and told him to cancel the appointment was astounding, nearly as astounding as the fact that his father’s arms were wrapped around him.

He was caught between emotions—the want to physically recoil, the want to push him away, and yet, the strange want to hug him back, the fact that this was the last time he’d be seeing him really starting to sink in.

( _It hadn't_ all _been bad, right? We have to have had_ some _good memories together, right?_

_Like..._

_Like....._ )

Octavio slowly hugged his father back, somehow feeling both stiff and jittery at the same time, but it only lasted a second before he tapped out, patting the elder Silva on the back and pulling away.

“When I get back, we can talk about it some more,” his father said, before putting his hand in his pocket and taking out a little tub of cream. “And put this over your eye, it should heal up in a couple of days.”

He handed the medicine to Octavio, who took it, not really knowing what to say, because what _do_ you say to someone in this situation? What are you _supposed_ to say to your asshole dad who showed you support for the first time in your life? Why were his eyes burning? Why did this whole situation fucking _suck?_

His father dismissed him from his office, and Octavio lingered in the doorway for a moment, feeling like he was about to throw up. He didn’t want to say anything, but he knew it was going to kill him if he didn’t get the last word in, so he looked back at the other man and said quietly,

“Bye, dad.”

His father looked faintly surprised at his words, but returned the sentiment with a slightly stiff, “Bye, son.”

It was much more final than the elder Silva realized, and Octavio felt his throat close up as he wandered downstairs, lost in thought. He wasn’t really thinking of anything, still stunned and still filled with a lot of complicated feelings about what had just happened. 

He was glad to leave his father behind, the years of being hit and ignored and passed off to nannies and tutors and bodyguards weighing over him like a cloud, and yet...he felt sad about it. Which was so fucking stupid, but he couldn't even pinpoint what was making him sad. It was actually almost making him angry that he couldn't figure it out.

The turmoil of emotions all came to a stop, however, when he remembered the fact that his father _knew_ —and one of the key parts of their plan was instantly foiled. Nobody was supposed to have any sort of idea what they were going to get up to that day, no leads for his father to call and ask _‘have you seen my son?’_ , but now, he knew.

Taejoon would scrap the plan, and so would Mystik. They were both so careful, so _paranoid,_ that this one component of it being ruined would set them back weeks. They’d have to start over. They’d have to come up with a _new_ plan. He’d have to wait even longer to leave, and who knew when the next opportunity would arise?

Octavio stared hard at the cream in his hands, the label touting that it could clear up scars and blemishes in a matter of hours. He was thinking, something Che used to call _‘dangerous’_ , and his head was spinning.

Did it really _matter_ if his father knew? Sure, he would know the last place Octavio had been before his disappearance, but there was no way he could figure out that he was leaving Psamathe for Gaea, a planet he wasn’t sure they’d ever even talked about before.

In fact, this helped clear up a murky part of the plan, Octavio thought to himself as he looked up, eyes focusing on the bulletin board across the mansion, so far away, but so clear to him. A set of keys hung from a pin, waiting to be taken on a trip to the airport.

They _were_ going to take the train to the lab to avoid anyone in the house knowing where they were going, but...they didn’t need to worry about that now. They couldn’t ask Delilah to take them, because she couldn't know they were going to the hangar, but they could just do the next best thing: steal the Benz. 

His father would know where he was going anyway, either via car or train, so they might as well make it easier on themselves than harder, right? This way, they wouldn’t need to make any return trips, and Octavio was sure he could come up with something convincing enough to get Taejoon to take the car with him without telling him the truth.

It was perfect. He would just have to lie to his boyfriend for a little bit, and then they would be out of here. What was the worst that could happen?

Glad that his little plan had successfully drowned out the complicated emotions inside of him, Octavio made his way upstairs, fully intending on making out with Taejoon one last time before they left this place behind.

* * *

“And this is the break room,” Omela said as she pushed open yet another heavy glass door, her slight frame much more capable than it looked. Octavio could not believe that they had built the doors to be this heavy. Were they secretly training the employees to be bodybuilders? “We allow frequent breaks, though when you’re an intern, they’ll be much shorter. You have to earn them.”

The break room was brightly lit, even if it was empty, thanks to the glass walls and modern lamps inside. A mixture of beanbags and comfy-looking chairs were spaced out evenly, a large shelf full of books, board games, and puzzles lining one wall. A fridge and stove were against another wall, looking way too clean, like they’d just gotten delivered from the appliance store.

It looked pretty boring.

“When are we going to see the labs?” He asked, and Omela glanced at him, still smiling, but he thought he was beginning to pick up on an undercurrent in the looks she was giving him. It was something he was used to—the mask one wore when they were annoyed or intolerant of his presence, the one his step-moms used to wear before they became more open about their dislike of him.

He wasn’t sure what he had done to earn them—he’d never even met her before now.

“You are still as impatient as ever, I see,” Omela said, and now he was beginning to doubt the fact that he didn’t know her. Maybe they’d met at the dirt track or something? He had literally no recollection of this woman, but she clearly knew _him._

“Well, I mean, it all looks the same,” Octavio said honestly as he followed her, tugging absentmindedly at the visitor's pass he'd been given. “Everything’s made of glass. There’s only so much you can do with that.”

“I suppose that’s true,” she mused, before leading him to the elevator. “Fine, you can have your wish.”

“Sweet.” Right, here they were, at the key part of their mission! Getting Taejoon’s blueprints and all that—then they could deprogram him for good, and Taejoon would be all his. Not half-owned by Hammond Robotics and the Syndicate, but well and truly Octavio’s. _His_ boyfriend. _His_ friend. One who wouldn’t abandon him, or betray him, and someone who couldn’t die and leave him behind. _His._

Maybe it sounded possessive, and maybe he was, but he had to be. Taejoon was the only thing he had right now, the link between Psamathe and Gaea, the key to a new life, the life _he_ wanted to live, not dictated by anyone else.

Octavio wanted a million things; his own place, to do streams and stunts, to kiss Taejoon without worry of getting caught by either the house staff or the watchful eyes of the Syndicate, but they had to do all of this first, and he would do it quickly.

Omela led him outside, using the back entrance of the building to take him to one of the doors to the lab. She held her I.D. up to the scanner, and the red light on it flashed green before she opened the door for him again. He fiddled with his own I.D. around his neck, not fond of the picture they had used for it. He didn’t have a driver’s license, so he’d had to bring his campus I.D., which he never actually used because he never _went_ on campus. It’d been taken right out of high school, so he felt like his face was still distinctly feminine in it, and it made him scowl whenever he thought of it.

Omela was only a couple of years older than him, Taejoon’s age maybe, but the lab had eerie red lighting that cast deep shadows over her face, making her seem ancient. She flipped a couple of switches near the door, and the red lights flickered off before fluorescent white lights buzzed to life.

“I don’t come here unless I have to,” Omela said, walking around the room, which was freezing cold and making Octavio shiver despite the long sleeves Taejoon had forced him to wear. “This place freaks me out, but we do have some of the top scientists in the world working here, so it’s nice to talk to them.”

“Yep,” Octavio said, before remembering that he was supposed to be polite. “I bet there’s lots to talk about. Like...biochemistry.”

He had pulled the word out of his ass, unsure if it was something involved in the robotics process of this place or not, but she nodded anyways. Still tugging at the I.D. around his neck, Octavio walked around the room too, glancing at the monitors staged in a circle, but he realized that he didn’t exactly know what he was searching for. He wasn’t a tech geek like Taejoon, more of a gears type of person, so he had no idea what he was looking at.

Still, he had to try, so he approached a set of double doors and looked expectantly back at Omela, waiting for her to open it.

“This is all I can show you,” she said, sounding rather blasé. “That’s the end of the tour.”

“For real?” He asked, much louder than he meant to, and he forcibly quieted himself as he kept on. “But I barely got a peek, chic—er...ma’am.”

“The lab is off-limits to guests.” Omela approached him and grabbed him by his wrist, pulling him towards the door. “Come _on,_ Silva.”

“I’ve got money!” He said as a last resort, a bribe, but she scowled at him, unimpressed.

“I am Omela Khan. The fact that you think I can be bribed is infuriating.”

It hit Octavio, then. _Ohhhhh. Khan._

When he was younger he had been forced to hang out with all of his dad’s colleagues' kids, and though Che was the only consistent one throughout his life, he’d probably met Omela Khan then. He knew her mother, the owner of a huge delivery company, and fuck, _she_ was probably richer than him. He couldn't bribe her.

“Hey,” Octavio said, as if greeting her for the first time that day as she took him back to the main building. He was trying to get on her good side now, play up the _‘we’re old friends right?’_ angle to get her to let him into the building, but he was pretty sure she hated him. “It’s been a while, huh! Lotta things changed. Like, uh, my gender?”

“Silva,” Omela said, and he shut up. “I don’t know what scheme you're planning, but I don’t trust you. I _know_ you. You have ten minutes to leave the premises before I have security escort you out.”

Well, _fine,_ then.

Octavio returned the visitor's I.D. to the front desk and stomped his way back to the car, glad to rid himself of the pants after wearing them for nearly an hour. Taejoon wasn’t waiting inside like he had told him to, so that meant he must have gone into the lab by himself, then. Good—he'd gotten a head start and they wouldn't need to look for too long.

Octavio slid into the driver’s seat, staring hard at the gear shift, not very confident in his parking or pulling out skills. Actually driving was fine, but this required much more careful precision lest he accidentally take someone’s side mirror off. He did manage it, albeit much slower than he would have liked, and he could feel Omela Khan staring at the back of his head the whole time.

He drove down the road that would take him back to the highway, and when the huge glass building was out of sight in his rearview, he swerved onto the grass, driving the car out as close to the labs as possible without getting seen. He trusted the hills to hide the Benz from view, because he really didn't fancy having it towed.

He was planning to run inside and help Taejoon out so they could get the fuck out of here, but he checked his phone first, just to see how much time they had before they needed to start the drive to the hangar.

Huh. He had, like, a million text messages. Unlocking his phone, he squinted at the messenger, but it didn’t say who it was. It just said _UNKNOWN SENDER_ , and where the phone number usually was, it just said _UNKNOWN NUMBER._ Realizing with a jolt that it might be Mystik, he click on the messages, and read the most recent ones:

 _Unknown Sender:_ SILVA.

 _Unknown Sender_ : PARK NEEDS YOU. NOW.

 _Unknown Sender_ : LAB 2.

 _Unknown Sender:_ PARK IS INCAPACITATED.

These messages had been repeated a dozen times, evidently trying to get his attention while he was on tour, and he felt the blood drain from his face. A familiar, ugly nagging feeling was making its return in the back of his mind, getting louder and louder as he sat in the car, trying to comprehend the messages. 

_Fuck._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!!! pls dont be afraid to leave a comment!! ;w;


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise ! a day early cuz i wanna do a 31 days of apex tomorrow!
> 
> warning: this is a rly heavy chapter
> 
> tws:  
> violence  
> drug use  
> death  
> graphic depictions of strangulation  
> vomit and blood  
> anxiety/panic attacks

_Fuck_.

Fuck, fuck fuck fuck what the _fuck_ had happened? The messages had first been sent nearly fifteen minutes ago—what the hell did she mean by _incapacitated_? Had Taejoon collapsed because of the ‘interference’ thing Omela had talked about, or had he been attacked? Just how incapacitated was he?

The messages were so vague that they were freaking Octavio the fuck out, making him panic, even though he didn’t _do_ panic. Panic was caused by worrying, and he didn’t worry—but Taejoon was different. Taejoon was...special.

_Fuck._

Octavio burst out of the car, popping open the trunk and practically ripping the zipper off of his suitcase as he opened it in a hurry, digging around inside. He had it hidden somewhere in case of emergencies, something he’d bought months ago but never had the need for, what with his own bodyguard and all...

He found it because he accidentally cut himself on it—letting out an audible gasp as he felt it slice across his knuckles, he shoved aside a bunch of shirts and saw what he was looking for; a black butterfly knife. Holding it in his hands, he stared at the red-stained surface of the blade, his knuckles pulsing with heat and pain, before he shoved it into the waistband of his pants and slammed the trunk shut.

_Just in case...just in case..._

He wiped his bloodied hand against his shirt, staining it red, and made yet another quick decision as he threw open the driver’s side door once again and pulled up the middle console. He wasn’t sure what awaited him inside the labs, but he could use the extra speed, and strength, and liquid courage. He was kind of freaking the fuck out.

Normally Octavio would tie his arm so he could find a vein better, but he didn’t have _time_ —instead he jammed the needle right into his forearm, and felt the stim rush through his body with a jolt, bringing with it a wave of energy and rawness.

He felt like an exposed wire now—powerful, buzzing with electricity, blood rushing through his veins and making him feel _alive_.

He wasted no time in tossing the needle and empty vial onto the grass, heart pounding so quickly in his chest that he could physically _feel_ how hard it was pumping blood throughout him. He raced across the hilly plain, hardly noticing the slope of it as the labs came into view, circular buildings made of steel and connected by outside hallways. He had no idea where Lab 2 was, so he went to the very last building on the end so he could run straight through without missing anything.

Fishing Adele’s I.D. out of his pants, he nearly cut himself on his knife again as he scanned it, but it didn’t go through. All of his emotions seemed amplified from the stim, and the way his heart sank as the red light continued blinking made him want to throw up out of anxiety. Bouncing on his heels from the overwhelming amount of nervous energy inside of him, he smoothed the paper out as best he could before scanning it again.

This time, it worked, and he felt like crying from relief.

He shoved the heavy door open like it was nothing and raced through the dark hallway without a second thought. It was dimly lit by the red lights from before, but he swore he was somehow more attentive now than he’d ever been in his life, eyes seeing both everything and nothing at the same time. He saw without comprehending, just knowing that none of it was what he needed, what he _wanted._

Octavio pushed open more doors and stumbled into a circular room, tripping over some of the wires connecting computers to the wall, and forcibly slowing him down enough to look at the brightly-lit monitors in front of him. Some of them were starting to dim, as if they had been left on for too long, and as he stared two of them went black completely.

It was security footage, he realized, and he honed in on Taejoon near-instantly—up ahead, lying motionless on the ground while a shadowy figure loomed over him, reaching out and touching his boyfriend. The horrible lighting of the place meant it was hard to see things well, especially on black-and-white footage, but he swore it was Hans Brandt, one of the lead scientists here, and his parents' colleague.

Octavio had no particular feelings towards Hans Brandt—pretty much forgot about him until he was brought up again—but the hatred that exploded inside of him at the sight felt decades old. Rage broiled inside his chest, a foreign protective swell, and his adrenaline continued carrying him forward, legs burning with heat.

He pushed through yet another set of doors, drawing his knife and holding it tightly in his fist, accidentally cutting himself once, twice, three times before he got a better grip on it, but he didn’t feel any pain, even as he slammed head-first into the set of doors at the end of the hall.

Realizing he needed Adele’s I.D. again, he scanned it, getting blood on the paper, but thankfully not on the barcode.

He was now in one of the outside hallways, and he must be close, because this led to Lab 2, right? The bright sun streaming through the windows seemed to burn his over-attentive eyes, but he grit his teeth and kept going.

Past another circular room with security footage dimming on screens, through a twisting set of halls that almost felt like a maze. He was going so quickly that his sharp turns often slammed him against the walls or caused him to stumble, but he didn’t fucking care. He just wanted to get to Taejoon.

 _What if he leaves me and it's_ my _fault what if he leaves me and it's_ my _fault what if he leaves me and it's_ my...

The emotions felt suffocating. He'd never felt so _much_ before, all at once, and it was almost excruciating. He knew it must be a side effect of the stim, but when he had taken it before, all those months ago, he hadn't felt like _this._ His own panic and concern for Taejoon must be fueling him.

He came to another set of doors that needed the I.D., forcing him to slow down, and the amount of frustration that followed made him audibly cry out as he kicked the door, unable to think straight. He took several deep breaths before scanning the barcode, heart jumping in his throat, and when he opened the doors this time, he knew it was the right room.

The red lights shining down on the scene made it seem like it was something straight out of a nightmare. Several things that looked horribly, awfully similar to Stalkers were spaced around the room, but they were still, motionless, and there was no evil glow in their faces, so they must be switched off, though he still eyed them cautiously.

Miraculously, Hans Brandt hadn’t heard him enter the room, still bent over Taejoon’s body, which was twisted at an odd angle, and missing a whole arm. A dark puddle of liquid pooled beneath him, and all rational thought fled from his head at the sight.

Octavio's heart was in his chest, thundering. Making the blood rush in his ears, and his vision tunnel. His hand was shaking; he could barely keep a grip on his knife, but he _had_ to. He _needed_ to.

Octavio was not a violent person. He wasn’t very good at winning fights, or getting out of tough spots (having been kidnapped before and needing a bodyguard because of it), and though he could hurt people, he never initiated it. He remembered breaking that woman’s fingers months ago after she had tried mugging him, but that was because Taejoon had pinned her down, and she couldn’t fight back.

 _He_ couldn’t fight back—always took what his father dealt him, couldn’t even stand up to a stupid security guard who had been chasing down his boyfriend, too small and lithe and easy to knock over.

But now? His body was tensed like a coil, staring at the flesh of Hans Brandt’s neck, exposed. He hadn’t noticed him. His back was to him, and yes, he was larger, but also older. Octavio was quicker, had to be on stim, and he could stab this man right through his throat before he even noticed, before he could even turn around. Octavio had the upper hand. He needed to—no, _wanted_ to kill this man.

And he wanted his boyfriend, most of all.

He took one step forward, and then another, and then he was lunging, right at him.

Hans Brandt stood up so fast that it was almost inhuman, grabbing Octavio’s wrist, which felt laughably small in his much larger fist. He was then thrown to the side harshly, landing hard on his shoulder and his knife clattering out of his hand, onto the floor just out of his reach. He hardly felt all of it, thanks to the stim still pumping through his veins, and it hardly put a damper in his drive.

Getting to his hands and knees, he crawled towards his knife, before staggering to his feet, facing the older man with heated eyes. He took another lunge, screaming as he jabbed his hand forward, trying to stab him through the heart, but this time he was punched right in the jaw, so hard it almost felt like his teeth were rattling around in his skull.

“Mr. Silva, I implore you to calm down,” Hans said, and for some reason his voice sounded louder than any other noise he'd ever heard. “The jig is up. I know.”

“You don’t know _shit!_ ” There was spit at the corner of his mouth from when he had gotten punched, but he hardly felt the pain. Just felt his own blood rushing in his body, and streaming steadily out of the hand he had cut, flowing freely.

“I don’t speak Spanish.” Hans gave him a disdainful look, but Octavio didn't notice—his body had frozen up at the sight of Taejoon standing before him, back straight and face blank. Black liquid was dripping out of his nose—not enough to be a stream of it, but enough to be concerning. 

"Tae!" Octavio cried, and let his emotions carry him forward, the stim urging him to rush to his boyfriend and see if he was okay—but a strong, solid arm shoved him to the side as he approached, hitting him straight in the chest and knocking the wind out of him. With a groan he tumbled to the ground, confused, because _what the hell_ , and Taejoon stared down at him, unblinking and unmoving.

Realizing his former bodyguard had been the one to both punch and shove him, a myriad of emotions took root in him. Confusion, anger, terror, betrayal, shock, too many for him to get a good hold on, all running through his veins just as quickly and heatedly as the stim.

He couldn't make sense of any of it, but he knew in his anger that only one person could be responsible for this.

Octavio darted past Taejoon quickly, beelining straight for Hans Brandt, moving faster than anyone could properly comprehend. He lunged at the older man, trying to tackle him to the ground by grabbing at his waist, but Hans shoved him aside. Stumbling backwards, Octavio felt a metal hand grab the collar of his shirt and yank him backwards so hard that the top button of it popped right off.

"Mr. Silva," Hans sighed as he took out his phone, glancing at the time before pocketing it. “I’d rather you be in one piece when this is all over. It makes things _much_ easier for us.”

Enraged even more by the implication that they would do to him what they had done to Taejoon, Octavio managed to wrest himself from his boyfriend's grip and swung his fist forward, trying to punch the older man to get him to _shut the fuck up_ , but he was chokeslammed to the ground before he could get very far, once again knocking the breath out of him. He truly felt it for the first time then—pain, as fingers tightened around his neck, preventing him from inhaling, exhaling, anything. 

Taejoon hovered above him, still staring down at him, the black liquid from his nose having slowed to an occasional trickle as he kept his one good hand firmly latched at Octavio's throat.

He couldn’t breathe, and his heart was still furiously pumping blood through his veins, blood that needed oxygen, but he couldn’t get any, and it _hurt_ —almost as much as the sight of Taejoon on top of him, looking indifferent as he suffocated.

Octavio tried to pry the fingers off of his throat, but they wouldn't budge, and his unevenly cut nails scratched along the metal of Taejoon's wrist, but he still didn't let go. In fact, his fingers seemed to squeeze harder, and Octavio let out an involuntary gasp.

Wasn’t stim supposed to make him stronger? Or, at least, able to use his fullest strength? Push himself beyond the limit? He knew Taejoon was strong—had to be, in his tall, imposing robotic body, but Octavio couldn't even get him to budge, and it was starting to terrify him.

He _needed_ Taejoon, he needed him _,_ but this Hans guy _did something_ to him and it was so fucking _unfair._ His heart was still pounding against his chest as he looked into Taejoon's eyes, trying to see something, _anything_ there, but they were glassy and unseeing. The black stains on his face looked like blood under the red lighting of the labs, and he just wanted this fucking nightmare to be over with.

“You two thought you were being discreet,” Hans said, pacing around them both, and man, he’d never hated an old person so much in his _life._ “But we have eyes and ears all over the city, Mr. Silva.”

The faces of the hundreds of people they’d encountered in the city went through Octavio’s mind as if it were his life flashing before his eyes, a fitting metaphor, since he was slowly dying on the ground beneath Taejoon.

That suspicious employee at the PC café, that homeless guy on the train, the woman at the dirt tracks, the security guard at the department store, the bartender who served he and Taejoon drinks, and so many more...

And all of those had been his idea, hadn't they?

Getting drinks on his birthday, racing at the tracks, taking the train, using the PC café instead of a library, going clothes shopping...all of those had been _his_ idea, all of _his_ whims and poorly-thought choices.

A breathlessness that had nothing to do with the hand around his neck took hold of Octavio then, and it fucking _hurt._

Had _this_ been his fault, too? 

Had he brought this about by neglecting to tell Taejoon the truth because he was an impatient fucking _child?_ Had he brought this about by not informing Mystik and Taejoon that his father knew of their plans because he wanted to _leave,_ consequences be damned? 

Had his father told Hans Brandt that he might bring his bodyguard with him, and had Hans Brandt planned to apprehend them both at that time? If _they_ knew about their relationship (because of him, because of him, because of _him_ ), then they probably suspected that Taejoon told him everything, and Octavio became yet another person they needed to delete, to put out of existence lest he bring to light the truth of it all. They just needed a way to capture them both, and he had played right into their hands, and now Taejoon was under their control or _something._

He wanted to say something—yell at Taejoon, get that stupid metal head of his to work by reminding him that he was supposed to _protect_ Octavio. His old programming had to be in there somewhere, right?

Right?...

( _"I still think you cut me on purpose," Octavio said, running his finger lightly over the small scar on his jaw. It had been days since he'd first found out about Taejoon's true nature, and though one part of him thought it was fucking_ wicked, _a very small part of him still worried about a robot uprising._

 _"...I did," Taejoon said, and feeling vindicated, Octavio had yelled_ 'aha!' _"But I won't do it again."_

_"Oh yeah? Well, I don't believe you, no offense."_

_"It hurts me to hurt you," Taejoon said, and Octavio paused at that, before squinting._

_"Huh?"_

_"I_ can _hurt you, but I don't want to. And even if I did, it would hurt me physically. I'm supposed to protect you, so every time I hurt you, it's in direct opposition to my programming." Taejoon shoved his hands into his pockets, fixing Octavio with a look, before adding,_

 _"I_ won't _hurt you."_ )

The foreign sense of sadness and guilt, piling on top of his empty lungs and the terror of his boyfriend killing him, slowed his heart down, and in his final moments, he was confronted with the ugly truth, aided by stim and the dizziness of his head.

 _He’d_ done this. _He_ had been the cause, the catalyst for every single unfortunate thing that had happened in his life—no wonder everyone left him, abandoned him, or died. It was _his_ fault. His fault his mother died in the hospital, his fault every single one of his nannies grew sick of him, his fault Ms. Rossi quit her job, his fault Ajay left, and now, his fault that Taejoon was _gone,_ hurting him, killing him.

The problem wasn’t them. It was him.

The burning in his eyes grew to be too much, and he felt sick at the thought of having his final moments be him tearing up in front of one of the people who were responsible for Taejoon’s current state of being, but he couldn’t help it. His body was wracked with sobs that couldn’t come to fruition with his blocked windpipe, and it all fucking _hurt,_ but he deserved it. He did, and his unheard cries made his whole body tense up.

Octavio gave up on clawing at the hand around his neck, staring up at the blank face of the one person who wasn't supposed to be able to betray him or hurt him. The one person who was supposed to be on _his_ side, now crushing his throat, and it was his fault. His own carelessness had done this to them both, and now, he was going to fucking die.

And then, in a blink of an eye, the weight pinning him to the ground disappeared.

It all happened so fast he wasn’t sure what, exactly, had happened.

A flash of violet light filled the room, accompanied by a strange _woosh_ , and a heeled boot had connected with Taejoon’s face, knocking him to the side. Octavio took deep, merciful breaths, dizzy from his own tears and the sudden influx of oxygen and the stim still moving through his system. He raised his trembling hands to his face, vision blurry as he flexed his fingers, because holy shit he was _alive_.

He couldn’t get to his feet yet, too weak, but he did prop himself up on his elbows to look at the scene before him, chest heaving and an unflattering trail of drool running down his chin.

A woman wearing a strange assortment of clothes was bent over Hans, a knife plunged deep into his chest. Her hair looked odd, not very long, but it did look like she'd been growing out a buzz-cut for quite a while, and she had a scarf draped over her shoulder.

When she straightened up, her eyes were such a pale blue that they almost blended in with her white sclera, and they freaked him the hell out—but he only saw them for a few seconds before she ducked to avoid Taejoon swinging at her.

He had recovered, and now with his back turned to Octavio, he could clearly see a red chip plugged into the back of the taller man’s neck. The sight of it made him nauseous, a glaring reminder of what had just happened, and though he knew Taejoon was no longer on top of him, he swore he felt the ghost of his weight on his chest and throat, and brought his hand up to claw at the empty air there.

The woman managed to fake out Taejoon, taking advantage of him only having one arm and darting around to his side, swinging her knife—no, more of a kunai—at his boyfriend’s face. 

“The chip!” Octavio tried yelling, but it came out as a gasp, yet she still seemed to understand him.

She changed direction halfway through, instead driving her kunai right against the red chip, ripping it out of the port in Taejoon’s neck, and the man instantly collapsed to the ground, lifeless. She glanced over at Octavio, scanning him, as if checking for injuries, before turning her back on him.

The woman said nothing as she stepped over Hans’s dead body and bent down to grab something. She then held up Taejoon’s arm, and it was both comical and mortifying at the same time as she tossed it at him without a word.

Octavio flinched as it landed in his lap, his heart jumping into his throat uncomfortably as he eyed the metal fingers, so similar to the ones that had fastened themselves around his neck. She then lifted Taejoon up despite her small stature, shorter than even him, and he finally got to his feet too, legs shaking.

The guilt inside of him was constricting his chest even as he took in deep breaths, but he tried not to let it show, the sudden turn of events dizzying and nearly incomprehensible because he had no idea _what_ had just happened. There seemed to be a blockage in his throat, and he swallowed several times, trying to clear it.

“Who are you?” He finally managed to ask, voice coming out strange due to the choking he’d just endured, and when she let go of Taejoon he nearly collapsed under the other man’s weight because _fuck,_ his boyfriend was heavy.

He then eyed the Stalkers still spaced around them, half-expecting them to come to life and strike him where he stood, but they were eerily statue-like. One of them had its control panel ripped open, and he had an awful feeling about where that red chip had come from, but before he could entertain the idea out loud, the woman said,

“Just someone who owes him a favor in another time, another place.”

Octavio stared at her, because he really had no fucking idea what she was talking about. She didn’t seem keen on explaining either, lips thinning into a line as her eyes somehow grew paler.

“You should get out of here as quickly as possible,” the woman said, jerking her head a little. “This place is about to blow.”

Her words registered with him, and his eyes widened as his mind connected the dots. Despite what his parents and teachers had said, he _did_ pay attention to what was being said to him—the information just usually wasn’t important to him. But who could forget about a series of bombings?

“ _You’re_ the one who’s-?”

“Go,” she cut him off. She gave him another look, and he felt, oddly enough, that she knew him.

Though it was a different feeling than when he’d been interacting with Omela; he was _sure_ this time that he had no idea who this woman was, had never seen her, heard of her, breathed the same _air_ as her until now. But she looked at him with something familiar in her eyes, and it sent a shiver down his spine.

A swirling blue vortex opened up behind her, looking like a monstrous gaping maw, and he opened his mouth to yell at her, but the scream died in his throat as she stepped back, and disappeared with it. 

He had no time to ponder, no time to waste—if what she had said was true, this place was about to get blown to fucking smithereens, and he and Taejoon had a flight to catch.

He struggled to hold up both the weight of his boyfriend and his detached arm, aided a little by the adrenaline still inside of him, but that was slowly fading away, giving him a bone-weary feeling. It certainly didn’t help that he was still desperately trying to intake as much oxygen as he could.

He dragged Taejoon out of the building, and the relief of being saved seemed to dry up like water in the desert. The fact that he’d _needed_ saving was both humiliating and terrifying at the same time, especially the fact that he had needed saving from the one person supposed to protect him. Nearly getting choked to death by his boyfriend and the threat of getting turned into a robot weighing in the air—it all came crashing down on him, and he wanted to throw up.

He’d had close calls with death before, but they had felt exciting and fun. The feeling of crashing to the ground after taking too risky of a turn on his bike was a good one, but this? This had been a nightmare. He was _still_ trapped inside this nightmare, and he wouldn’t be able to escape it until they were off of this stupid fucking planet.

Security sirens started blaring from the labs, and he didn't know what had triggered them, but they had to be looking for him now, yet he was going so _slow._ He should have brought the other vial of stim with him, but as it stood he was struggling to carry his boyfriend for even a few steps, body feeling weak and shaky.

Octavio panted as he dragged the other man up the hill, Taejoon’s body weighing heavy like lead. The man smelled awful too, like his bike did during repairs. He had to stop several times to catch his breath, the sirens drilling into his head, before he continued, hosting Taejoon up higher on his body.

He was soon able to spot the Benz in the distance, sitting still against the bright green grass, and he’d never been so happy to see that damn car in his life.

He went down the hill quickly, gaining momentum as his heart kept pumping, but the speed combined with the weight over his shoulders caused him to trip forward. He rolled onto the ground with a shout that was drowned out by both the sound of sirens and revving cars that seemed close by.

Laying on the grass next to the sprawled body of the other man, he lifted his head just in time to see four black cars whiz by, speeding towards the Hammond labs. Fuck, okay, those big burly men he’d seen in the diner were here, now. He had at least managed to avoid being seen by them.

Octavio got to his feet quickly and dragged Taejoon across the ground, wincing at how limp he was. _Sorry sorry sorry sorry..._

He managed to get Taejoon into the car and ran around to the driver’s side, though as he stepped over he heard the sound of glass crunching beneath his feet, and he gave a shriek. Realizing that he’d just stepped on the empty vial he’d thrown to the ground earlier, he sank down to the grass, hand to his chest as if trying to forcibly slow his heartbeat down, clinging onto the side mirror so that he didn’t collapse completely.

Octavio was terrified. He’d never been so terrified in his life, not when his father was hitting him, not when he’d gotten caught by Irina with Taejoon, not when he had nearly died at the dirt tracks that one time. He almost felt paralyzed with fear, but the adrenaline in his body was making him twitch uncontrollably, head jerking a little as he kept trying to catch his breath, but nothing was helping. He knew he needed to get out of here, but his knees were locked in place, and his stomach was churning.

Octavio finally managed to get into the car, somehow the most difficult task he’d managed in a long time, gripping the wheel with his hands shaking so hard that he wasn’t sure how long he’d be able to last on the road before crashing.

He turned his phone on, seeing that Mystik had sent him the directions to the hangar, and he clicked on them mindlessly. A robotic voice on his phone told him where to go, and he put the car into gear before making his way onto the road. 

_Wait, no,_ a panicked voice screamed at him, and he swerved a little, gritting his teeth. _There’s people back there, and they’re going to die._

Why should he care? It was Hammond, one of the reasons why Taejoon was like this. Besides, there were hardly any people here today anyway, and they were all faceless strangers, so what was it to him if they died?

It was how he tried reasoning with himself, tried forcing himself to think calmly and logically, but Omela Khan’s face kept flashing before his eyes, and it was making this whole situation very hard. He didn’t care for her, but he knew her, and he wouldn’t be able to rest if he didn’t swing back around to warn her of the incoming explosion.

Stomping hard on the brakes, he let out a cry as he hit his forehead against the steering wheel, having not put on his seatbelt yet. He grabbed the gearshift, but froze momentarily when he saw Taejoon’s limp hand lying near it.

Gleaming black and bronze fingers, looking metallic and smooth. They were still, but for how long? How much time did he have until those fingers flexed to life, and reached over, and took him by his throat? He was so weak from earlier, trembling terribly, and it still felt like he was trying to catch his breath.

He snatched his hand away, as if afraid that Taejoon would come to life and grab his wrist, and he scrubbed his palms over his face, trying to calm down, because he was being so fucking _stupid._

Taejoon was out and he couldn’t come back—not yet anyway, not until Octavio plugged in that hard-drive, or so he hoped. He needed to get a fucking grip, needed to drive back to the building, needed to warn Omela and the others about what was about to happen, needed—

He felt it before he heard it. The entire frame of the car seemed to rattle, and he swore the road before him was swaying as he gripped the wheel so tightly that the cuts on his knuckles, which had just managed to stop bleeding, split open again. Glass rained down behind them, some landing harshly on the Benz, and thick black smoke curled into the sky. He saw the flames in his rearview, and stepped on the gas without a second thought.

_Too late you’re too late you're too late you weren’t fast enough..._

He really, really wished his head would shut up.

He got onto the freeway, but was unable to relax, hands still shaking and causing the car to swerve a little, accidentally drifting into the lanes on either side of him. He seemed to be the only person across all eight lanes, and he felt totally alone out here, with only the black smoke filling the sky to keep him company.

Hell, with Taejoon out of commission beside him, he might as well be by himself. He didn’t even want to look at the other man, too afraid that he’d see something awful, some sort of irreversible damage, and fuck, he felt like crying again.

Octavio eventually saw other cars on the road, and heard even more distant sirens. As his phone directed him where to go, four cop cars got into the lanes next to him, and he felt like throwing up once again. He wanted to slam down on the gas, urge the car to go faster than its ever gone, but he knew that would bring suspicion to him, and _fuck,_ Omela had seen his car.

What if she’d survived, and what if she had called the cops on him, thinking he had set the explosion? What if she had gotten his license plate? Or at least told the cops to look for a black Benz—what if they were about to arrest him? What if they saw Taejoon beside him?

Fuck, what did Taejoon even look like next to him? Covered in the dark, drying liquid that wasn’t quite blood, body limp like a ragdoll, he looked like a dead body. Why the fuck had he sat him up front with him instead of laying him in the backseat? Why was he such a fucking idiot?

Octavio’s breathing was speeding up again, coming out sharper and sharper, and the car kept jerking, sensitive to his trembling hands. He swore one of the cops in the car next to him was staring at him. 

_Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._

He had four hours to get to the hangar, and it was four hours away. He didn’t know if he was going to make it. He _couldn’t_ make it.

Octavio soon realized with dread that the car was in desperate need of gas, but he didn’t know how to get off the freeway without looking suspicious. He didn’t want the cops to tail him, but the fact that they hadn’t gotten behind him yet was a good sign. He just needed to chill the fuck out, he told himself, because being like this wasn’t him. He wasn’t supposed to panic or worry or be paranoid. That was Taejoon’s thing.

Taejoon, who was currently beside him, stiff and unmoving. Taejoon, the first person in a long while that he felt truly cared for him. Taejoon, the first person in a long while who he cared for, too. Enough to feel guilty over the fact that he had fucked up, enough to be near tears as he thought that maybe everything _wasn’t_ going to be okay. That this whole plan was going to fail, and it was all his fault.

He changed lanes, spotting an exit up ahead, and a gas station even further still. The cop cars didn’t slow down or change lanes either, but he was biting hard on his lower lip as he took the exit. He glimpsed his expression in the mirror as he checked to make sure there was nobody behind him as he switched lanes, and saw that his face was as white as a sheet. 

His leg was shaking, which wasn’t good, because the car kept speeding up and slowing down because of it, and when Octavio finally pulled into the gas station, he pushed his door open and threw up in the parking lot.

His vomit was tinged green from stim and red from the slushy, but staring at it, he almost felt like he’d coughed up his own blood. His knees trembled beneath him, and when he looked over at Taejoon, it just made him feel even more sick. The phantom sensation of a palm pressing into his windpipe made him gag again, but he managed to not throw up any more by pressing his hand to his mouth and taking deep breaths through his nose.

When he stopped feeling like he was going to cough up the contents of his stomach, he walked around the car, pulling open the back door and then the passenger’s side. Pulling his boyfriend out as carefully as he could with shaking hands, Octavio moved him to the backseat, laying him down and positioning all of his long limbs as best he could. 

He told himself that it was so if anybody looked over at them while driving, Taejoon wouldn’t look suspicious, but one part of him knew it was because he was scared. More scared than he’d ever been in his life that the man would wake up, and reach out for him.

_(But isn’t the back seat worse?_

_Will I be able to see him if he wakes up?_

_He can more easily grab me from behind._

_What if he—)_

Octavio jerked his head violently, trying to stop. Fucking. _Thinking._

It helped somewhat, but there was still an ice-cold feeling in his stomach that was making him feel sick. When he pulled his hands away from Taejoon, he realized they were covered in the oil-like substance leaking out of him, and looking down at his clothes, saw that he was also covered in blood that had dried brown and his own vomit.

Taking a deep breath, Octavio grabbed his duffel from the trunk and left the parking lot, walking out into the woods behind the gas station. He didn’t want to be seen by the security cameras, but he felt filthy as he peeled off his clothes and threw them deep into the woods, the rancid smell still clinging to him even as he put on a clean pair of shorts and a band tee he hadn’t worn in a while. His hands were still caked in black and red, but he didn’t know what he could do about them, so he carried his bag back to the car and dumped it on top of his suitcase.

Getting back into the driver’s seat, he saw that Mystik had messaged him again.

 _Unknown Sender:_ why did you stop moving?

 _Unknown Sender:_ you need to GO.

 _Unknown Sender:_ NOW.

Octavio took a deep, shuddering breath before pulling out of the parking lot. He still needed gas, but he would find another station, one that wasn’t so close to the blasted remains of Hammond.

He drove for twenty minutes, and every second felt like the car’s last on the road. He didn’t drive, so he had no idea how long the Benz could go on while the arrow veered on ‘empty’, but he felt that he was pushing his luck. He kept checking the rearview mirror, paranoid, but he wasn’t sure what he was looking for—cop cars, Hammond employees, or Taejoon.

When he finally saw the sign of a gas station in the distance, he took another exit, swerving into the parking lot so abruptly that he nearly crashed into a trashcan. Taking yet another deep breath, he looked back at Taejoon, half-afraid that the sudden motion of the car would bring him to life, but mercifully, he was still.

Octavio’s nails scratched harshly into his thighs as his hands curled into fists, trying to steel himself, before he reached into the middle console and took out his face mask and sunglasses. He grabbed a wad of cash as well, and because he was still paranoid, grabbed the plastic bag with the stim and syringe inside.

He shoved them into his pocket before getting out of the car, jogging into the gas station. He hid his hands behind his back as he made his way to the bathroom, and once he was inside he instantly turned the faucet on, scrubbing at every inch of skin he could to get the blood and oil off of him.

He only had so much time—they had to make that dropship by tonight, and the clock was ticking, but if he had to look at his stained hands on the steering wheel for another second he was going to throw up again.

He rubbed foamy white soap over his skin, and the soap was soon dyed an ugly brown before he rinsed it off beneath the faucet, staining the sink as well. He managed to scratch flakes of the stuff off with his nails, but his skin still seemed stained. 

Octavio made the mistake of looking up in the mirror and seeing his reflection, then. From what could be seen of his face, his skin was ghostly, and there were dark purple bruises on his throat, standing out so starkly against his skin that one could mistake them for a tattoo. Feeling violently sick at the sight of him, he turned the faucet off, unwilling to accidentally glimpse himself again.

He grabbed a paper towel and rubbed harshly at his skin, one final attempt to get the blood to stop clinging to him, before throwing it away and speed walking to the register.

He accidentally knocked over a rack of chips in his haste, but paid no mind as he took out his cash, sorting through it with shaking hands and looking for the smallest possible bill he had. The employee watched with him with furrowed brows, but thankfully, they didn’t ask any questions.

Finally, Octavio took out a hundred dollar bill, and practically threw it at the employee, saying, “Pump three.”

“Do you want any ch—”

“No, keep it,” Octavio said, and he was out of the store faster than the employee could blink. He filled the car up as quickly as he could, not very experienced in doing so—filling up bikes was a little different, but he got the hang of it well enough. When he put the pump back, some gas spilled out onto the ground from how hurriedly he'd done it, the acrid smell burning his nostrils.

Octavio got back into the driver’s seat, and looked behind him to check on Taejoon. He hadn't moved. Good.

Stepping on the gas, Octavio swung out of the parking lot, and was back on the road once again.

* * *

They almost missed the dropship.

Three hours of not once lifting his foot off the gas came to a grinding halt as he was met with traffic, having had to leave the freeway to get to the hangar.

Octavio was already an impatient person, but the crawl of the cars surrounding him seemed especially agonizing this time around, to the point that he cried real tears when he looked at the time on his phone—thirty minutes until the dropship took off, and he was still so, so far away.

The traffic fed into his growing anxiety, too; he kept craning his head around to look at Taejoon, so much so that perhaps the people around him thought he had a particularly rowdy child in the backseat, and each time he was convinced for a half-second that the other man had _moved_ since he’d last checked—only to realize that no, he hadn’t. It was his mind playing tricks on him.

Octavio had what Che might've called a panic attack, but he was too busy trying to catch his own fucking breath to worry about the semantics of it. He kept his foot well away from the gas, but came close to ramming on it several times if it meant he could blast past all of these stationary cars and get to the hangar faster. He did finally manage to calm down, but he was pretty sure a little girl in the car next to him was staring.

Traffic finally picked up with seventeen minutes left to get to the hangar, and he drove recklessly then. While it had been much easier to drive when there had been several lanes of open road, being surrounded by other cars led to many small near-accidents that had several people honking their horns at him, but thankfully, no cops were called.

The setting sun burned high, dyeing the Olympus sky gold and red. It seemed to shine directly in his eyes as the robotic voice from his phone told him which turns to take, and when he saw the dropship in the distance, he felt bile rise in his throat, from both relief, and the fact that he had only three minutes to spare.

Octavio bypassed the parking lot completely—he drove straight to where two men stood with a clipboard each, screeching to a halt in front of them, the tires of the Benz squealing. One of the men instantly started shouting at him angrily in accented English, but Octavio paid him no mind as he threw open the driver’s door, holding out his phone to show them their digital tickets.

“Sir, you have to park your car,” the angry man’s much calmer colleague said, but Octavio dug into his pockets and pulled out a wad of cash. There had to be, at the very least, thirty thousand dollars in it, but he was too tired to count.

“Take it,” Octavio said, voice still weak and gravelly. “Burn the car, leave it in the woods, I don’t care. Get rid of it.”

The angry man had quieted considerably at the sight of the money, and after a moment of consideration he took it from Octavio and said, “Will do. Allow me to help you carry your bags.”

Octavio took a deep breath, before opening up the backseat. He wasn’t too anxious about them seeing Taejoon—the tickets specified that he had a robotic bodyguard, but he didn’t want to deal with any questions as to why he currently looked the way he did.

Octavio paused at the sight of Taejoon, lying still, eyes closed as if he were sleeping peacefully. He almost didn’t want to touch him, heart crawling back up into his throat, but the calmer man called out, “Sir, the dropship needs to leave on schedule.”

It spurred him to move, but he still felt nervous as he lifted Taejoon up, slinging his good arm over his shoulder and grabbing the other’s detached arm. The man who had told him to hurry stared at them with wide eyes, and Octavio made up some excuse on the spot.

“Yeah, uh, his repair guy is off-planet.” Octavio saw the opportunity to have someone else handle Taejoon so that he didn’t have to touch him anymore, and asked, “Help, please? I’ll pay you.”

Taejoon was then lifted from his shoulders, and he was able to straighten up, digging around for more cash in his pockets. He had more in his duffel if needed, but the angry guy had it, so he hoped that the man carrying Taejoon would be fine with only ten grand. 

They climbed up the dock leading to the gaping entrance of the dropship, where several crew members watched them approach. To their credit, none of them flinched at the sight of Taejoon’s limp body, but several of their eyes trailed after them, even if they didn't say anything. None of them said anything about Octavio’s suitcase either, even though the dropship only allowed small carry-on bags. 

_Rules are for everybody but the rich,_ he remembered his father saying once, and he flinched at the memory of his voice. Thankfully, nobody noticed.

He was led to the private room they had booked weeks in advance, his phone buzzing in his pocket with more messages from Mystik, and the angry man from before set his bags down for him none-too-gently, before looking up at Octavio.

“Can I keep the car?” He asked, hopeful. Not sure if there were any security cameras who had caught the license plate back at Hammond, Octavio coughed out,

“I wouldn’t recommend it.”

The man carrying Taejoon deposited him on a chair, before bowing to him and accepting the cash Octavio gave to him. The two men left, shutting the door behind them, and Octavio was left alone with Taejoon.

Octavio set the arm he was holding onto Taejoon’s lap, taking a deep breath as he looked around him. The quarters were big enough, for a dropship—enough room to pace, at least. There was a large bed for two people pushed into the corner, a wardrobe, a small TV, and an even smaller refrigerator.

They had gotten this room because Octavio had thought there would be no problem with them sharing a bed, having done it dozens of times already, but now he felt sick at the thought. 

He sat at the edge of the bed, staring down at his shaking hands, still stained a light brown color. His eyes were burning once again, but he bit the tears back, taking several more breaths as the dropship hummed to life beneath his feet. He took off his mask and sunglasses then, placing them on the TV stand, before curling up into a small ball on the bed and wrapping his arms around his knees.

Octavio wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and let this nightmare of a day come to an end, but he couldn’t. Not with Taejoon sitting in that chair, motionless, head tilted to the side. If one didn’t know that the man was a robot, they would think that he was sleeping, but Octavio knew better. He was terrified that the other would come to life—pin him to the bed and kill him with his one good arm like he’d nearly done not that long ago, and he wouldn't be able to fight back.

He knew he was being irrational—that the actions of Taejoon had been because of that red chip that Hans Brandt put into his neck, but he was still scared, still shivering where he laid.

He dug his phone out of his pocket and squinted at the messages Mystik had sent him to give himself something to do. They were mostly telling him to calm down, that together they would fix it all when he got to Gaea, and that she’d see him in a couple of days. What might have once been a comforting message now felt sour, and he tossed his phone aside, head spinning.

He eyed Taejoon’s still form before getting to his feet, reaching for the blankets. He pulled a clean white sheet off of the bed before throwing it over Taejoon so he wouldn’t have to look at him and be reminded of his presence, but he still felt nervous. Deciding that maybe taking a shower would clear his head, he left the room, asking one of the flight attendants for the bathroom.

The ship was now rocking gently as Octavio locked himself in one of the bathrooms, feeling like he was about to collapse from his own nausea and nervousness and the effects of stim draining from his body. He wasn’t used to feeling so much at once, and quite frankly, he hated it. He could blame it on the stim for now—he thought he had diluted it enough back at home to not get too severe side effects, but evidently, he had been wrong.

Octavio undressed quickly, even the clothes he had only been wearing for a few short hours feeling disgusting and clingy. He nearly sobbed when he realized he had left his knife back at the lab, and he now had one less way to protect himself should Taejoon...

_Shut up! Stop thinking about it!_

Stepping into the shower, he twisted the knob so that the spray of water was hot enough to burn his skin, and started scratching at his arms again.

The guilt from earlier was coming back, harsher than before, and he hated it. Octavio took several deep breaths, willing the steam of the shower to clear his head, but it only served to make him feel hazier. His eyes were burning again, and his throat was starting to close up. 

It really _had_ been his fault they’d gotten into this mess, he couldn't help but tell himself. If he had told Taejoon that his father knew of their plans, maybe they could have avoided this. Done it another day, or found a different way to steal from Hammond without them knowing, without them being able to get their hands on Taejoon. But instead, Octavio had fucked it all up; impatient and wanting to _leave,_ he put his desires above all else, and now his boyfriend could potentially come to life and kill him at any moment.

Great.

And wasn't it his fault that a whole bunch of people had just died, too? He hadn't been fast enough back there, had clammed up when he caught sight of Taejoon, and as a result, Omela Khan and several others were now little more than scorch marks on the ground. Even if he had not been directly responsible for their deaths, it was still clawing at him, tearing him up from the inside.

His knees felt unbearably weak, so he sat down on the tile floor, letting the water hit his skin and wash away the grime of the day. He wrapped his arms around his legs again, trying to calm down, but the tears kept burning and burning until he let them fall, feeling pathetic as he did so.

They were finally getting out of here, but Octavio almost wished they had stayed, or done something different. Anything that didn’t leave him feeling as terrified and alone as he felt now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> octane: well well well, if it isnt the consequences of my own actions
> 
> jokes aside, this chapter hurt. a lot ;__; but we should be wrapping up either by next chapter or the chapter after that. ty all for ur support so far!!!
> 
> originally when i thought up this fic, i pictured that , similar to the voidwalker short, wraith would give octane the choice to hop dimensions and go to a universe where taejoon WASNT wanted by the syndicate. but nah, thats too easy, so i went this route instead LMAO


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a little late oops
> 
> tws:  
> brief mentions of vomit  
> mentions of drug usage  
> mentions of death  
> and some not very good parenting

“The surrounding neighborhoods have been evacuated due to heavy smoke and debris still in the area.”

Octavio stirred his drink absentmindedly, staring hard at the TV screen in the corner of the bar, deaf to the shouting patrons surrounding him.

“Eguono Odjegba, the owner of a local diner, says the explosion came without warning, after several of his patrons—who were employed at Hammond—left in a hurry.”

The dropship swayed gently, his drink sloshing a little with it, but not enough to spill onto the bar counter. Octavio tore his eyes away from the screen and took a sip from his margarita, trying hard not to listen to the words that seemed to be echoing throughout the room, loud even over the rowdy people around him.

“It is believed that a dozen employees and one guest were present at the location, but only five bodies have been recovered. One of the employees, Omela Khan, daughter of Bimala Kh—”

“Ay, can we turn that off?” A grizzled old man asked from beside Octavio, causing him to jump a little in anxiety. “That’s depressing, is what that is.”

“No, I want to hear it,” the woman he was with argued. “I know somebody at Hammond.”

“Chances of them being involved are slim to none,” the old man said. “Only a dozen people there, Janet.”

Octavio returned his attention to the TV, biting hard on the inside of his cheek when he saw Omela Khan’s smiling face. Her mother’s face was onscreen as well, but much less happy—there were tears streaming down her cheeks as she mourned the loss of her only child, and he felt like the ice in his drink had been magically transferred into his stomach. He took another sip, the fruity and sour taste mingling on his tongue, but he didn’t swallow. Couldn’t, when the reporter said next,

“Octavio Silva, son of Kishou Silva, was also visiting Hammond today, but it is unknown if he left the lab before the explosion or had something to do with it. The family’s car has not been recovered, but he hasn’t been seen, nor has his body been f—”

“Please,” the old man begged, and the bartender switched the channel to some mindless sports instead. The old man’s friend, Janet, began complaining, but Octavio didn’t stick around to hear them speak much longer. Leaving his half-finished drink at the bar, he pulled his mask back up and left the crowded room, glad nobody spared him a second glance even though he was wearing sunglasses indoors.

Octavio passed by several other people—people talking in the halls, watching TV in some of the public entertainment areas, all relatively carefree and calm. Nobody seemed to care that a bunch of people had just died today, and nobody was aware that a potentially murderous robot was in their midst, only one deck above them.

Octavio made his way up the stairs to his room, bowing his head to all of the flight attendants who passed by him, and they in turn bowed back.

He’d never been off-planet before, but he had taken several flights with his father on luxury planes, and the etiquette seemed to be the same. He was doing his best to act as polite as possible, trying not to stand out or appear obviously worried, but the crawling sensations beneath his skin were making him constantly shiver, and it only got worse when he entered his room.

Octavio hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours. He’d tried to at least take a nap last night, curling up on his empty bed and burying his head beneath his pillow to block out the hum of the dropship, but nothing seemed to work. His body longed to latch onto something, cling to some _one_ , and the only available person was Taejoon, who was still motionless beneath the white sheet he’d been placed under.

It was unsettling to see the other man like that. Octavio had seen him feign sleep before—he'd close his eyes and go silent, but he knew the man had always been alert. Always ready to move. Always ready to...

Octavio’s throat constricted, and his hand jumped to his neck on instinct. He stood frozen in the doorway, staring at the white sheet before him, stiff and silent. The lump hadn’t moved at all since yesterday, but he was still wary of it. After several moments of staring, he turned his attention to his phone, sitting on its charger at the corner of the bed.

Taejoon had disabled location-tracking on his phone with his weird hacker skills, and made it so that nobody but him could track Octavio on his phone, but he still felt anxious every time his screen lit up, and it had been the reason he’d gone to the dropship bar in the first place.

He had over thirty missed calls from his father, a handful from Adele and Irina each, and even a few from Ajay. Ten voicemails too, all from his father, and it was with extreme hesitance that he sat at the very edge of the bed and played the first one out loud.

“Octavio," his name rumbled out of his father's mouth, and it always felt foreign to hear it from him. "I need to know if you’re alright. Call me back immediately.”

He stared at the replay button that had popped up—short and sweet, barely ten seconds long, as he liked them to be, but he almost wished it had been longer. He clicked _'delete'_ , and then played the next one.

“This isn’t funny. It’s not a joke, it’s not time for one of your games. I need you to call me. Please.”

Octavio’s leg was bouncing uncontrollably as he deleted that message, too. The next one was just a repeat of the previous, but slightly more desperate. He had to pause and scrub his hand down his face, feeling queasy as he played the fourth.

“A text, a call, anything—Octavio, please. _Please_ call me back. If you did something, we can handle it. Our lawyers can handle it. I just need to know if you’re ali...if you’re alright.”

Octavio kicked his legs off of the ground and flopped onto his side, taking a deep breath that didn’t quite satisfy the aching in his lungs. His eyes felt hot, and he felt like he was going to throw up the margarita he’d just drank.

His finger hovered over the _‘play’_ button of the fifth message, but before he could click on it, his screen lit up again with another call, this one from Ajay. He stared at it numbly, her name blurred because of the tears in his eyes. The upbeat, poppy song he’d set as her ringtone seemed to mock him, and he was glad when it ended. However, he saw that he now had a new voicemail in his inbox—she’d left one behind.

He considered deleting it without listening to it, but because he hated himself, he hit the little _‘play’_ icon.

“Silva,” Ajay’s voice came through his phone’s speakers, clear and worried. Not desperate like his father’s had started to get, more collected than that, but still concerned. “I’ve seen the news, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I trust you to get out of these crazy situations alive.”

He supposed she was right about that one, but it still made his throat ache again.

“You’ve gotta be out there, somewhere, and maybe you’re laughin’ it up in a cabin and drinking beer in the woods or something, but—” Here she paused, and when she spoke again, her voice came out a little shaky. “Just text me, okay? I won’t—I won’t even tell your dad, if you don’t want me to. Just get back to me, if you hear this.”

Octavio deleted the message, and didn’t think he could stomach listening to anything more, so he dropped his phone onto the bed without further ado. He rolled onto his back, staring at the miserable gray ceiling of his room, and took another deep breath.

When Octavio had planned on leaving everything behind, he’d never imagined it like this. He thought it’d be much more dramatic, much more in his father’s face. A public _‘fuck you’_ as he moved his things out of the house, and into a high-rise apartment in the city, where he’d do whatever the fuck he wanted and made sure everyone knew it. 

Even now, he and Taejoon’s plans had been to simply run away. Maybe he’d contact his father to let him know that he hadn’t been kidnapped, that he was starting a new life somewhere—but he’d never planned on faking his own death. 

He supposed he could reply to their messages, let them know he was alright, but then he’d have to answer their questions about what had happened at the lab, and he didn’t know how to deal with that right now.

Mystik hadn’t contacted him since yesterday, and he hadn’t plugged Taejoon’s hard-drive back in yet, so he was left aimless. He never thought he’d miss someone telling him what to do, but after the colossal mistake that was not telling Taejoon that his father knew of their plans, he was afraid to do anything else that might further endanger his boyfriend.

Octavio rubbed at his eyes, feeling that they were icky due to a lack of sleep, but he didn’t want to close them for longer than a few seconds at a time. Hell, he didn’t even want to be in this room—it was frigid in here, Taejoon was making him nervous, and if he had to see his father’s name pop up on his screen one more time he was going to cave and answer.

So Octavio left his room once again, and went to find something to do. Anything to take his mind off of the current situation.

* * *

Octavio had done a lot of dangerous things in his life—had jumped from the fourth floor of his house with a parachute made of condoms, had backflipped through a ring of fire on a dare, had stepped into a pit of snakes because his dumbass high school friends had egged him on—he’d done a lot of dangerous things, and yet none of them had made him as anxious as the idea that he would be recognized.

Twenty-four hours turned into forty-eight, and Octavio felt like he might be on the verge of collapse.

He refused to sleep in his room, and couldn’t sleep anywhere else out of fear that someone would take off his mask and sunglasses, and he would be recognized. The picture the news was using of him was the same campus I.D. photo he’d used at Hammond, so his face wasn’t quite the same, but he was still paranoid that he’d be recognized.

He’d even asked one of the flight attendants if they had any available rooms for him, but they were at full capacity, she’d said, so he had no choice but to stay in his room with Taejoon. He returned to his room a grand total of twice that day, once to check his phone for any new messages—no new voicemails from his father, but a dozen calls from Ajay—and the second time to take a look at Taejoon’s arm.

He’d lifted the white sheet up carefully, the first time he’d done so since boarding, and he’d nearly fled the room. The sight of Taejoon’s fingers, so solid and sharp and shiny, had made him want to run away. Find a place on the dropship as far away from him as possible so that he could catch his breath, which was gone faster than he could comprehend, as if forcibly taken from him.

The bruises on his throat burned, but he had to check, just to ease his mind that this whole mission hadn’t been a failure, that they _had_ done something right. He swiped up Taejoon’s arm quickly, sliding the torn sleeve off so he could get it over with and drop it. An intense game of hot potato, almost, except instead of an imaginary burning sensation in his fingers it was a very real pain in his throat.

Octavio opened up the compartment located in his forearm, like Taejoon had shown him, and was intensely relieved to see that the hard-drive was, in fact, there. He didn’t necessarily know if Taejoon had gotten the information he’d needed or not, but the fact that he had it was good, because Octavio had lost his own hard-drive back at Hammond.

He shoved the arm back under the sheet and ran away then, too afraid to be in the room for longer than a couple of minutes.

Dinner was steamed and salted fish, apparently a Gaean favorite, and Octavio wondered as he ate if Taejoon liked it. They’d never talked about their favorite foods, mostly because Taejoon couldn’t eat, and Octavio didn’t think it was noteworthy enough to talk about, but he longed to have a casual conversation with someone. He’d only spoken a couple of times since boarding, and his voice sounded weak and hoarse, but he wished, more than anything, that he could talk to Taejoon again.

He wished they were back at home, sitting in his room and playing some stupid video game together. He wished he could run his hands over the other’s chest, and feel Taejoon’s fingers card through his hair in return. He wished he could make stupid remarks just so he could see how Taejoon would react—the way his brow would crinkle and his nose would snub, pouty lips turning down at the corners as he tried to think of a comeback.

He missed it. He really did.

* * *

The dawn of his third morning on the dropship didn’t really feel like morning, nor could he see any sort of dawn. But the digital clock in the main lobby showing the time and anticipated arrival date in Gaea—another four days—told him it was six in the morning, and so he believed it.

Octavio felt like fucking shit.

He hadn’t slept, not once, since he got here. He could barely keep his food down, and it wasn’t a matter of liking it or not—he’d found out that they served tamales during lunch yesterday, and had scarfed down six, but still threw up all the same. He felt constantly dizzy, constantly anxious and constantly afraid. He’d never felt like this before, not to this extent, and he was starting to feel feverish on top of it all.

At any point in his childhood that he’d been afraid or anxious, he was able to simply run away. To Ajay’s house, to a different part of his large, sprawling mansion, or to the dirtracks, or behind his school where he used to smoke before he had quit. He would run away, and then he’d feel better, and he’d come back.

Ajay had gotten on him about it before— _you can’t just take a train every time you feel bad_ —but it worked for him. He could relax, and get the Octrain back in motion.

But he couldn’t do that here. He had been awake for seventy-two hours in constant misery, and no matter which part of the dropship he went to, the pressure of it all felt inescapable and suffocating.

He’d gone to the café to at least try and eat a bagel or two, but the bread felt like hardtack in his mouth when he’d glimpsed the news playing on a TV, still going on about his disappearance and whether or not he’d been involved in the explosion at Hammond.

Eight in the morning rolled around, and he still felt despondent. He spent a half hour in the shower, letting the hot water run over his skin and wash away the awful feeling clinging to him, but he still felt filthy when he toweled off afterwards.

By nine, his entire body was shaking. Octavio had secluded himself in a corner of the dropship for now, balancing a magazine on his knee while two other people on the couch next to him talked about the Apex games. He could barely read the text on the page due to a mixture of his trembling leg and tired, burning eyes. He soon discarded it and curled up onto his side, his sunglasses digging into the side of his nose uncomfortably as he did so, but he felt too tired to even hold his head up anymore.

His body was shaking so hard that one of the people on the couch asked him if he was alright, and he nodded mutely, tucking his hands under his curled-up legs to warm them, because he was freezing.

“You should really go to the nurse’s office if you don’t feel good,” they said, and god, he felt like he was back in school.

“I’m fine,” Octavio said, but he wasn’t sure if his rasping voice could be heard from behind his face mask. He laid like that for several long minutes, and the two on the couch eventually went away. He was tempted to close his eyes and let sleep overtake him, but he didn’t dare give in. He didn’t want to be discovered, didn’t want to be placed under scrutiny, didn’t want Taejoon to get found out, didn’t want...

With a jolt he realized he’d drifted off, not quite asleep, but definitely not alert. Octavio sat up abruptly, vision blackening at the edges from how quickly he’d done it. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t stay awake—not without some help.

Octavio was back in his room before the clock even hit ten. He pulled open his bedside draw and pulled out the little plastic bag he’d brought with him, the glowing green vial of stim staring up at him enticingly. He ripped up his pillowcase carelessly—it wasn’t like he was going to use it anyway—and tied it around his arm with fumbling hands, so tightly that it started going numb quickly.

Octavio had diluted the dosage back at home, but given how tired he was, the stim should keep him up for another twenty-four hours at least. After that...he foresaw a lot of ice-cold showers and coffee cups, but for now, the solution was simple. Shoot up, stay awake, stay alert.

Or so it seemed.

He froze when he picked up the syringe, suddenly aware of how much the dropship was swaying, how much his hand was shaking and how blurry his vision was.

He felt nauseous at the thought of administering it to himself in this state, having never taken it while running on fumes, but he had no other choice. His teeth clenched at the memory of the last time he'd used it— _blood rushing, not enough oxygen to keep up, not fast enough to save a few people_ —but he had to take it, or risk falling asleep.

However, this vial was the last dose he had. His last dose of strength, of energy, of adrenaline...should he really waste it on staying awake? What if Taejoon came to life tomorrow? He’d have no energy then, no emergency back-up....what if he needed it when they landed on Gaea? What if, somehow, Gaean authorities figured out that he was still alive and on his way there with a wanted criminal and _god_ he felt sick just entertaining the thought.

Octavio made his decision after several long moments of trying to swallow around the lump that had formed in his throat, and he untied the pillowcase from his arm with a long, slow exhale. He leaned over to place the vial back in the draw—however, because of how shaky his hands were, he fumbled the little bottle, and with a shattering of glass, he was now staring at the neon liquid pooling on the floor.

Maybe in the future Octavio would laugh at the memory, but in the present moment, he just felt so fucking _defeated_.

Exhausted, anxious, no light at the end of the tunnel or however the saying went—he was at the end of his fucking rope. Too tired to muster up tears, even though he so desperately wanted to cry. Too tired to scream, even though his throat ached to. Too tired to do much of anything other than roll onto his side, and stare at the wall.

Octavio gave up, then. Gave up on the effort to keep himself alive—if Taejoon woke up and strangled him, then so be it. If one of the staff walked in and saw his uncovered face and recognized it, then so be it. If the dropship crashed into another and burst into flames, then so be it. 

He didn’t care.

* * *

When Octavio woke up at midnight on the fifth day, he had no idea where he was. His mouth felt like a scorpion had made its nest inside, and his head felt heavy with cotton. His body was hot and sweaty, and it was a little hard to breathe. When he peeled open his eyes, he was greeted with the sight of a miserable gray ceiling, and he suddenly remembered where he was.

He sat up abruptly, stomach groaning. His sunglasses had fallen off his face and onto the floor at some point, probably due to turbulence, and his face mask was hanging from one ear. The green mess on the floor had been cleaned up, and the white sheet in front of him hadn’t budged an inch.

Strangely enough, Octavio felt...better. He was starving, and sweaty, and dizzy, but he no longer felt as sickly, like he was hanging on by a thread. Stretching his arms above his head, he felt his shoulders pop and his back crack, before bending down to scoop his sunglasses back up. He took his phone off its charger, gave the white sheet before him one long look to make sure it wasn’t going to move, and left the room.

Hardly anybody was up, as it was midnight, but a few night owls and people whose sleep schedule had been disrupted by the lack of proper dusk and dawn wandered about. He went to the café and saw that its shutters were closed, but he had enough change in his pockets to get a pack of cookies and a candy bar from the vending machine next to it.

Sitting at one of the aluminum tables beside the door, he ripped open the cookies and started stacking them in threes on the table, much to the disapproval of a woman watching him from the opposite end of the room, but he didn’t care.

When he finished stacking them, he turned on his phone and glared blearily at the number of text messages he had. Several were from Ajay, and a couple were from his father, which made the odd feeling of guilt inside of him multiply.

His finger hovered over the _‘reply’_ button, half-wanting to reassure Ajay, at least, that he was alright—but he didn’t want to accidentally screw anything up. Not without input from Mystik, who had to be doing her damndest to erase all evidence of him and Taejoon at the labs.

And speaking of her, he had a few messages from her as well, sent about two hours ago.

 _Unknown Sender:_ everything alright?

 _Unknown Sender:_ see you in a couple of days.

 _Unknown Sender:_ i’ll be waiting for you at the landing site. look for a big blue truck.

Octavio shoved a stack of cookies into his mouth, chewing slowly as he considered replying. She had to have witnessed the way Taejoon had hurt him, right? He wanted so desperately to talk to someone, _anyone_ , about what was bothering him, and she was privy to their situation and had seen it firsthand. Would she mind him reaching out to her? 

Octavio hardly ever talked to people about his problems—that had solely been reserved for Ajay and later, Taejoon. He wasn’t used to reaching out to adults or older people, wasn’t used to asking for advice or anything like that, but he had no one else to turn to. And besides, he liked her, and he was sure she liked him back. At least, she’d asked Taejoon once about when they were getting married. Sort of.

( _“Son,” Mystik said by way of greeting as their meeting got started. Her eyes then flickered to Octavio. “And son-in-law.”_

_Taejoon’s head jerked, turning to look at Octavio with wide eyes, before asking, “Huh?”_

_“You heard me,” Mystik said, stroking her cat behind its ears while Octavio laughed at Taejoon’s expression—those pouty lips forming a perfect ‘O’, dumbfounded._

_“We’re not even—” Taejoon shook his head vehemently, the first instance of acting truly embarrassed that Octavio had seen. “We don’t—”_

_“It’s going to happen eventually,” Mystik said wisely. “Or it’ll crash and burn. One of the two.”_ )

Octavio’s throat closed up at the thought, which made swallowing the cookies in his mouth hard. He managed to get them down, but immediately felt queasy, giving the other stacks in front of him a nauseated look. He considered throwing it all away, but instead scooped them back up and placed them back in the package, folding it over so they wouldn’t go stale. He then opened up his messaging app, and before he could regret it, typed

 _O. Silva:_ im scared

He sent it, and started to elaborate in a second message, thumbs flying across his screen, but Mystik replied rather quickly.

 _Unknown Sender:_ of what?

 _O. Silva:_ taejoon

 _O. Silva_ : im afraid hes going to wake up

Octavio bit down on his thumbnail as he sent that, drawing his knees up to his chest so that the heels of his feet rested against the very edge of his aluminum chair. Strangely enough, this felt like the last time he’d told someone he was scared—eleven years ago, curled up on his bed, texting his new friend Ajay that his father was home drunk and...

And there was a heavy weight on his chest, and cold fingers were tightening themselves around his neck, and he couldn’t _breathe._ Taejoon’s hand, usually so gentle with Octavio, trying to make sure he didn’t hurt him, pressing down on his throat.

He stared, unseeing at the bright screen of his phone, feeling overwhelmed, feeling so much at once. The dregs of sleepiness drained out of him, and he now felt fully awake and alert. He waited for Mystik’s reply, leg shaking so hard it rattled his chair, and the woman who had been sitting in the room with him got annoyed and left.

His phone buzzed, and he saw her reply:

 _Unknown Sender:_ you’ll get over it.

 _Unknown Sender:_ see you soon.

Her blasé response made him feel stupid and childish. Was he really overreacting to the situation? Were his fears _that_ dumb and laughable? Octavio brought his hand up to his throat, pressing lightly against the bruises there, and jolted at the pain he felt. He’d recovered from his father hitting him well enough—what made this situation so different?

Feeling the exact opposite of comforted, Octavio gathered up his cookies and candy and made his way back to his room, intending to watch a movie or something to give himself something to do. He bit his tongue as he shut off his phone, unable to bring himself to respond to Mystik. Maybe she hadn’t seen him get choked, after all. Or maybe she had, but since he was alive, didn’t think it a big deal.

And really, why was it a big deal? Because his boyfriend’s brain had gotten taken over? Because the person who had been protecting him for months had turned on him? Because he had deluded himself into thinking he’d finally found the one person in this world who wouldn’t leave him?

Taejoon would understand him. Taejoon always understood him, always listened to him rant, and complain, and never doubted him. Taejoon had been a good listener, and Octavio missed that the most about him.

But he couldn’t exactly tell Taejoon now, could he? He was out. Unresponsive, and probably wouldn’t move until he had that hard-drive inserted into him. Octavio wasn’t even sure he _wanted_ him awake—there was always a chance that that red chip’s data was still inside of him, and it had corrupted him, and he would lash out at Octavio, and...

“Sir,” a man said, and Octavio looked up to see a flight attendant about his age staring at him. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Octavio lied, voice cracking in an embarrassing way as he spoke for the first time in several days. “I’m just going back to my room.”

“Okay.” The man nodded, before he froze, and grabbed Octavio by his upper arm. Alarmed, Octavio tried yanking himself free, but the man asked, “Aren’t you that guy who’s on the news?”

His heart sank, and the cookies he had managed to swallow earlier threatened to make a return. “Who?”

“I swear you look just like that guy,” the flight attendant accused, and fuck, this was what he got for not wearing a _fucking_ mask. “Silvia, or whatever his name is.”

“Let go of me,” Octavio said, voice still hoarse, but the man’s grip just tightened even more. Normally, Taejoon would have gotten this man off of him by now—either by force or by telling him to back the fuck off. But Taejoon wasn’t here. It was just him on this dropship, with no one able to defend him but himself.

“Cornelius,” a woman’s voice suddenly said, and both men turned to see one of the flight attendant's coworkers standing there, hands on her hips. “Stop threatening our guests.”

“But I’ve got a suspected criminal right here!” Cornelius cried.

The woman squinted at Octavio, then. “Who?”

“C’mon, Laurel, it’s that kid they can’t find! The one they think might’ve set the lab explosion!”

“You idiot,” Laurel said. “He looks nothing like that guy.”

“But—”

“Here,” Laurel said, and pulled out her phone. Cornelius’s grip loosened just enough for Octavio to tug his arm away from him, slowly backing away from them, prepared to run. “See, look, his jaw is completely different, and his face isn’t as round.”

Oh thank _fucking_ god the news was using that old picture of him, barely a few months into his transition. He saw Cornelius’s brows furrow, and then a dawning look of horror overtake his face. It would be almost comical if Octavio's heart didn't feel like it was going to burst from his chest.

“Oh, sir, I am so sorry,” Cornelius said frantically, bowing to him repeatedly while Laurel scoffed and turned on her heel, clearly having dealt with him more than once. “Is there anything I can do to—”

“Yeah,” Octavio cut him off, and the flight attendant shut up. “Tell the staff to stop entering my room.”

“Yes sir, right away, sir!”

He watched the man dash away before climbing up the steps that would take him to his room, even though he didn’t really want to be in it, but after that fiasco, he didn’t want to risk getting recognized again. He’d have to stay inside to prevent that from happening. Even though Taejoon...

He paused outside his door, hand hovering over the doorknob as he took several deep breaths.

_Taejoon’s asleep. I can handle this._

* * *

Eight hours until they touched down on Gaea, and Octavio was trying not to have yet another panic attack in his room.

Mystik had texted him, told him to plug that hard-drive into Taejoon’s neck to get him up and going, but he didn’t want to. He’d come close—had ripped the sheet away from him like one rips off a bandaid, trying to do it as quickly as possible so he could dash out of the room should he need to, but his shaky hands had fumbled the hard-drive, and it had slid under his bed, forcing him to slow down.

Octavio was sitting on the floor now, having retrieved the hard-drive, but he was hiccuping so hard that his chest hurt as he nervously passed it between his hands. Taejoon was still sitting on the chair right where he’d been left, head tilted to the side and eyes relaxed shut. Octavio wasn’t quite sure why he wasn't able to wake up on his own yet—had that chip shut him down completely, or had Hans Brandt done something to him? Would he still be...like _that_ when he woke up, or would the new hard-drive wipe all that data clean?

The bruises on his throat burned, and he shuddered involuntarily, teeth grinding. He felt like a fucking coward, and he knew he was being one. He didn’t understand why he felt like this, but he hated it, and he wanted to get it over with—the sooner he did it, he told himself, the sooner he could flee.

So he swallowed his fears down, and moved behind Taejoon, running his finger lightly over the opened panel at the back of his neck. He'd opened it once, when kissing Taejoon and exploring the parts of his body that had fascinated him the most, and Taejoon hadn't even felt it. He wondered if the man wouldn't feel the hard-drive too.

Taking a deep breath as if he were about to dive into the deep end, he jammed the hard-drive right into the awaiting port, and instantly leaped back. Pressing his back flat against the door that led out into the hall, Octavio stared, frozen, at Taejoon’s limp form, his heart beating wildly in his chest like a jackhammer. He waited for something, _anything_ to happen, but...

Nothing did.

Though anticlimactic, it was worrying. Why wasn’t he moving? Had something gone wrong? Was his port damaged after that woman had stabbed the chip out of his neck? Could he not come to life this high up in the air? Had the Hammond lab messed with his brain like Omela said it would?

Managing to extract his phone from his pocket despite his trembling fingers, he texted Mystik rapidly, describing the problem to her, and waited for her to respond, foot tapping impatiently against the floor. He kept glancing up at his boyfriend to see if anything had changed, but nothing had—he was as still as ever.

Finally, his phone buzzed with a message:

 _Unknown Sender:_ relax. he needs some time to...’boot up’, i suppose.

 _Unknown Sender:_ closer to landing, he should wake up.

 _Unknown Sender:_ remember: big blue truck.

The words seem to swim before his eyes, and with a sigh he turned his phone off and gave Taejoon another look. He still hadn't moved, but that didn't keep Octavio from feeling nervous. He paced his room for a couple of minutes, watching the other man like a hawk and waiting for any sign that he was gaining consciousness, but none came. He eventually left the room and went to the café to get himself lunch, but two bites into his turkey sub it started tasting like cardboard and he threw the rest away.

Octavio checked on Taejoon periodically as the day progressed, wearing a hat and a mask and sunglasses to avoid recognition as he wandered the halls, trying to keep himself entertained. The itchy feeling of impatience and staying in one place for too long was starting to catch up to him—and about three hours left until touchdown, everyone was told to sit as they made their descent and it only served to worsen the feeling.

Back in his room, Octavio shifted through the contents of his suitcase, tossing aside comic books and video games until he found what he was looking for—the photograph.

His mother smiled up at him calmly, dark eyes intelligent and full of life. He'd never known her, not really—only had videos of her taken by her family that his father had kept, plus the pregnancy scrapbook she'd maintained before he was born.

His mother's family didn't like him. He hadn't seen his grandparents since he was twelve, and his uncle had openly admitted to detesting him over the phone with Octavio's father, once, a conversation he wasn't supposed to hear but eavesdropped on anyway. Octavio supposed that was fair—his mother had died giving birth to him, after all, and he would probably dislike himself as well in that situation.

Octavio didn't think his mother cared for him, either. Or, at least, didn't care for the fact that she was pregnant.

Whenever he read the pregnancy scrapbook, he could practically feel the bitterness dripping off of the page with every word she wrote; she thought she would be saddled with housewife duties as soon as he was born, and only kept him at his father's insistence that they have an heir to the company. His mother had been ambitious, he knew, and probably saw him as a burden, a smudge on her high hopes and dreams.

Towards the end of the scrapbook, though, closer to his birthday, she started writing more kindly, like she had warmed up to the idea of having kids. Octavio wondered how his mother would have treated him growing up. If she would have played with him when he was bored, talked to him when he was alone, supported him when he came out in his teens. Octavio wondered if his father would treat him differently too—if Octavio had not been responsible for his mother's death, would Kishou Silva been a better father to him?

Octavio turned the photo in his hands over, reading the scrawled name on it as his foot tapped against the ground. He was so lost in thought that he didn't notice the movement out of the corner of his eye, not until a low, curious voice said, "Hello?"

Octavio dropped Malinalli's photograph, his head whipping around to see Taejoon staring at him with wide eyes. His heart immediately jumped into his throat, and his mouth went dry. They locked eyes and didn't look away or blink for a long, excruciating minute. Octavio counted every single beat of his heart, the number getting worryingly high, before Taejoon asked,

"Where am I?"

Swallowing heavy, Octavio spoke in his hoarse voice. “The dropship.”

“What dropship?”

“To Gaea, Taejoon,” Octavio said, voice cracking in the middle, and he winced.

He got to his feet quickly, swaying a little due to the sudden turbulence that caused the ship to rock, and he felt a cool hand place itself on his arm in order to steady him. He ripped himself away without thinking, stumbling yet again due to the sudden movement, and he tripped onto his bed and landed against his pillow. 

Taejoon kept watching him with wide eyes, and when Octavio sat up again, asked, “Who _are_ you?”

The familiar icy feeling that was becoming normal to him made his blood run cold, and Octavio waited for the other man to laugh and say he was kidding, or for him to remember, but it didn't happen.

They just kept staring at one another silently, daring the other to speak, and Octavio felt a burning sensation rise to his eyes as he took out his phone once again, typing a frantic message to Mystik and looking up every other word to make sure Taejoon hadn't disappeared in the two seconds since he'd last checked. 

Mystik assured him that Taejoon would remember him, and that he just needed time, but Octavio didn't feel so confident about that. He looked back up to see Taejoon now examining the empty socket of his arm, brows furrowed in confusion, and he felt dread at the thought that the other was about to ask him what had happened. He wasn't ready to talk about it yet, didn't think he'd ever be, but thankfully, Taejoon remained silent.

An hour until landing time, and Octavio was furiously playing a game on his phone in the corner of the room, the exact opposite side of where Taejoon sat, still frowning. Octavio was playing games in order to distract himself, but he kept glancing up, biting on his lower lip whenever he did so, fighting back the urge to get sick as his mind hyperfocused on Taejoon's fingers and the way his neck burned.

They were so close to Gaea, and he was so fucking _nervous._ He’d never been off-planet before, and while he knew he would be staying with Mystik for a little while, so would Taejoon, and he didn’t think he could stomach being in the same house as him right now. He still had several hundred thousand dollars on him, so there would be virtually no problem finding himself a place to live, but he was on the run from the authorities right now, wasn’t he? He’d have to change his name, maybe even his appearance...

Or...they could prove his innocence with the footage Mystik had snagged from the Hammond labs, and show that it wasn’t him who set off any bomb, but she would have to cut he and Taejoon out of it so people wouldn’t know that they’d broken into the labs, because that was a whole other can of worms. 

And they’d have to worry about Hammond still looking for them too, wouldn’t they? Hans Brandt had said _‘they’_ knew, so it wasn’t just him. Or had he been bluffing?

He hated being so confused.

He hated not knowing anything.

Biting hard on his thumbnail, he was broken out of his thoughts by Taejoon saying,

“You shouldn’t do that.”

Octavio didn’t respond, but continued biting, so hard he felt his nail break between his teeth.

“You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“Do you really not know who I am?” He asked, changing the subject, and Taejoon shook his head. His boyfriend’s eyes then slid from his face to the mess of his suitcase scattered across the ground, and he watched the man’s lips turn down a little.

“Let me help you with that.”

He got to his feet, which made Octavio flinch so hard he was sure the whole dropship would shake, but thankfully, Taejoon didn’t notice. He knelt down and started tidying up Octavio’s suitcase, somehow folding his clothes with one arm, and a question started nagging at the back of Octavio’s mind. Eventually, he burst out,

“Why are you doing that?”

“I want to help.”

“But—but you don’t have to. Not anymore.”

Taejoon looked puzzled. “Huh?”

“We disabled your programming, didn’t we?” Octavio’s voice kept going in and out, and fuck, it was embarrassing, but he had to know they hadn’t accidentally undone something important. “The programming that says you have to do that.”

Taejoon squinted at him, lips turning downwards even more, and really, the little movement in his face was what assured Octavio that maybe it wasn’t all terribly, horribly wrong. “What are you talking about? I’m just trying to be polite.”

“Good evening, passengers,” a voice over the intercom said, startling the both of them. “It is currently six P.M. on Gaea. Please gather your small carry-on bags and finish tidying up your rooms. We will be landing in fifteen minutes.”

Taking this as his cue to get out of here, Octavio rose to his feet, shooting Taejoon a look as he debated taking his suitcase out himself or paying someone else to do it for him. Deciding on the latter, he grabbed his duffel by the door and swung it open, eager to leave, but stopped when Taejoon called out after him.

“Wait,” his boyfriend said, and Octavio bit hard on the inside of his cheek. “You should wait in here with me. So you don’t get hurt.”

“Make me,” Octavio mumbled, an automatic response, something he was used to saying purely so he could be a brat, and he flinched. He remembered the first time he'd said that, how Taejoon had forced him into the shower, and he felt his anxiety spike at the thought of the other man getting that close to him again, at the thought of his hand taking hold of his arm and pulling him along.

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Taejoon hadn't moved. Just stared at him, stock-still and a half-folded shirt hanging from his arm, forgotten. Then, something akin to recognition lit up in his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic lowkey depressing me rn so it took me a bit to pump out this chapter sorry ;w;
> 
> pls dont be afraid to drop a comment!!! <3


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow last chapter got the most amount of comments ive recieved in a while!!! thank u all for ur support !!!!!
> 
> and now this chapter....Begins

Taejoon remembered everything in bits and pieces.

Remembered planning to escape, remembered Kishou hitting Octavio, remembered the eyepatch and Irina and printing out Adele’s I.D.—but that was as far as his memories went. The stuff before all of that was patchy, too; remembered drinking in a bar, but didn’t know how he got there. Remembered kissing Octavio in bed, and knew something bad had happened afterward, but didn’t remember what.

All of his memories currently felt like disjointed puzzle pieces; he could sort of tell what the bigger picture was, but he had yet to connect the pieces, and was even missing a few, leaving the puzzle with gaping holes in key places.

He felt horrible for forgetting Octavio, though. When he had first woken up, he was dazed, not really sure where he was or why, and having only a fuzzy idea of _who_ he was. The only reason he hadn’t panicked was because he didn’t really feel anything through the daze, and the first real emotion that came to him was regret.

Regret that he had asked who Octavio was when he should’ve known, should’ve _never_ forgotten. He knew how his boyfriend got sometimes, his abandonment issues and insecurities, and he wanted to apologize to him, but the other man had left the room before he could even say anything, leaving Taejoon by himself.

Taejoon sighed, and went to run a hand through his hair, but nothing happened. Oh, right. His dominant hand was gone. Well, he was technically ambidextrous in this body, but he usually favored his right hand anyway. Frowning once again at the empty socket, he wondered just what had happened to it. There was certainly a story there, but his memory was drawing a blank. 

He guessed he would have to wait for it to come back to him.

Taejoon finished cleaning up Octavio’s suitcase, setting the photograph the other had dropped carefully on top of his clothes, before zipping it back up. Though it was annoying that the first thing he had to do when regaining consciousness was clean up his boyfriend’s mess, he still smiled a little at the contents inside—all of the manga they’d read during slow days at the mansion, the video games they had played late into the night, the shirts Octavio wore every day because they were his favorite.

He found his broken arm on the bed, and unzipped the suitcase to put it inside, because he didn’t think he could carry both it and the suitcase at the same time. The dropship was really rumbling now, but he was completely steady as he carried the suitcase out of the room and down the stairs, spotting his boyfriend near the dropship doors, pacing back and forth and wearing a mask and sunglasses.

It was amazing how free Taejoon felt at the moment. Though he had disabled a lot of his programming before this, there had always been the little nuggets that remained inside of him, little prompts and nudges in certain directions, but those were gone now. He felt nothing at the sight of Octavio, nothing but the urge to hug his boyfriend in happiness because _We did it._

He knew it wasn’t the end of their journey, but he had never pictured that they’d make it this far.

" _We are now touching down on Gaea...the time is 6:32...please take all of your personal possessions with you as you exit the dropship..._ "

He was home.

When the dropship touched down, the doors opened, and the ramp extended out for them. Before it had even fully reached the ground, Octavio was already on it, walking quickly down. Taejoon frowned as he followed after him, but didn’t say anything. The other man had been acting off earlier too—maybe he had motion sickness.

The first thing Taejoon felt was the sun—hot and blazing, shining directly down on him and causing him to squint. It seemed ironic to him that the first thing he had truly felt since beginning his second—er, third—life, was also the last thing he remembered at the end of his first. Minus the bag over his head and the blood filling up his lungs.

He had forgotten how late the sun sank in Gaea after months of early five P.M sunsets on Psamathe. He made out Octavio in front of him, equally as confused—checking the time on his phone to make sure it was correct, and then glancing back up at the sky, where the sun was still bright. It wouldn’t set for another two hours, but the sky was starting to get a little orange already.

“The sun sets late here,” Taejoon explained, and Octavio jumped a little, which he chose to ignore for now. “And rises later than you’re used to. Seven.”

He reached out to touch his boyfriend—not for any particular reason other than wanting to touch him—but the man shied away from him, and said, “We need to find a blue truck.”

Taejoon blinked. “Mystik’s truck. Right.”

Octavio’s voice was hoarse, and he was concerned—had his boyfriend caught a cold while onboard? He couldn’t read the man like he used to, where he was able to tell the other’s temperature and heart rate just by looking at him. In fact, he rather felt a disconnect to everything around him, unlike previously, where he felt as if he were a part of _everything._ One thread in the web of technology. 

He would miss it a little, the ease of access he had to everything, but _this_ was far more humanlike.

“What’s wrong with your voice?” Taejoon asked Octavio, but his boyfriend suddenly swung an arm out, pointing at a truck in the distance.

It had once been a very dark blue, but time in the sunlight had lightened its color considerably. The filthy mudflaps and tires were a sight he’d hardly seen back on Psamathe, but it was normal here, what with the miles of farmland and dirt that made up Gaea.

Psamathe wasn’t really good for farming or ranching—what wasn’t beach was hills and mountains, and what wasn’t hills or mountains or beach was skyscrapers. It was part of what made the planet so expensive to live on; the number of imported goods (mainly from Gaea and Talos) combined with the scenic beach view and high-rise buildings left dreams of living there seem distant and far away, especially to him and Mila, orphans living on the streets where they could barely afford two cups of ramen.

Taejoon shuddered to think of what the tax on ramen would be back on Psamathe.

As they approached the truck, Taejoon realized that the silhouette he could see through the window wasn’t the one of his caretaker. With a frown he reached out a hand to stop Octavio from getting too close to the vehicle, suddenly wary, but then the window rolled down, and he was greeted with a face he hadn’t seen in years.

“...Jordan?”

“‘Sup,” Jordan Grace said around a mouth full of bubble gum, and proceeded to blow a large bubble. Octavio stopped, staring at her, before looking back at Taejoon, like he wanted to ask something, only to quickly turn away.

“I thought Mystik was going to be here,” he said in his hoarse voice, and Taejoon flinched at the way it broke at the end of his sentence.

“She was, but some stuff came up with Xiaolu,” Jordan said, and then flipped her cornrows over her shoulder, showcasing the colorful beads at the end. “Like ‘em? Just got them done yesterday!”

“Since when could you drive?” Taejoon asked, amused, as he opened the door to the truck. There was no backseat, but he and Octavio could both squeeze into the front—and he was sure Octavio would jump at the excuse to lay in his lap.

“Uh, since I turned sixteen, doofus.” Jordan stuck her tongue out at him, her gum falling out of her mouth and onto her lap. “Aw, man.”

The last time he’d seen her, she’d been twelve. She was a relatively new addition to the orphanage by the time he had left, having only been there for a year, but Mystik had always told him that she was going to be the next... _him._

Good with encryption like he had been, and spunky, to boot. She’d showed up to his twentieth birthday celebration just to rub this fact in his face, and that had been the last time he’d seen her until now. Even if they’d never been particularly close, he still couldn’t help but smile.

Suddenly realizing that Octavio hadn’t gotten into the truck yet, Taejoon turned to his boyfriend, who had dropped his duffel into the bed of it and had one foot raised, as if he were going to climb inside with it.

“What are you doing?” Taejoon asked, frowning.

“I’ve never ridden inside a truck before,” Octavio said. “I want to ride in the back, like they do in movies.”

Taejoon hesitated, before asking in a hopeful voice, “You don’t want to ride up front with me?”

_And I can tell you how I grew up here, and what I missed the most, and you can tell me what you think, and..._

“No,” Octavio said. Though still wearing sunglasses, Taejoon sensed that the other man wasn’t looking at him.

Feeling as though he’d somehow done something wrong, Taejoon managed to lift the suitcase up into the bed of the truck and put it beside Octavio, who scooted into the corner, doing something on his phone. 

“It’s a long drive,” Taejoon tried, one more time, but Octavio didn’t respond, so he gave up and climbed into the passenger seat beside Jordan. She shot him a grin, having tossed her gum outside, and asked,

“Trouble in paradise?”

“How much do you know?” He sighed as he put his seatbelt on, and glanced in the rearview mirror to make sure his boyfriend was okay.

“Pretty much everything. Mystik told Carter and I about it in case the authorities discovered that she was helping you out.” Jordan started pulling the truck out of the parking lot, moving down the marked lane and onto the road that would take them to the city, several hours away.

Unlike back on Psamathe, where the areas outside of cities were mostly uninhabited or for factories, there were several farms and ranches as far as Taejoon could see here. He wondered what Octavio would think of them.

“Know about your new squeeze, too.” Jordan glanced at him. “He seems cute. And also, mad at you.”

“I don’t know why,” Taejoon mumbled, frustrated.

“Well, what I wanna know is, what happened to your arm?”

“I don’t know.”

“Think they’re related?”

Taejoon could not think of any situation in which losing his arm could be connected to Octavio acting stiff with him, but that was mostly because he didn’t remember a whole lot of specific details yet. Maybe his boyfriend was still upset over Taejoon not recognizing him, which was fair. And it _had_ evidently taken him a week to wake up after that hard-drive had been plugged into him, so perhaps Octavio was also upset that he had spent the whole trip alone.

He eventually got lost in thought watching the scenery as they drove by, the feeling of homesickness that had been residing inside of him for so long dissipating, but not quite all the way—that wouldn't happen until they got to the city. The orphanage.

Taejoon knew that his old apartment was in ruins, so he and Octavio would be laying low at the orphanage for a couple of months before they could get their footing. He knew Octavio wouldn’t be too happy about it at first, but they wanted to avoid being recognized, because he was sure that Kishou would soon raise the alarm when he noticed his son was missing, if he hadn't already.

Jordan turned on the radio, and the first thing that was heard was a news station.

“Disturbing new footage released in regards to the incident at—”

“Ugh,” Jordan said, and changed it to some upbeat music. “Wait, no, you still got all that Ateez on your phone? Plug it in.”

“I don’t have a phone,” Taejoon said.

“How did you _live?_ ”

“Terribly.” Taejoon let his head tilt to the side, supported by the weight of his seatbelt, and felt himself relax. “You have no idea what it was like.”

“So tell me.”

While it had been a relief to tell Octavio his true nature months ago, it was somehow more relieving to tell it to someone who knew him in detail, not limited by any time constraints like he and Mystik’s meetings had been. He described everything—the prompts, the way he couldn’t hurt Octavio, the way he was connected to everything—and the more he described it, the more noticeable their absence was. It almost felt like it had never happened at all, and he found himself grasping at words that could properly explain just what his life had been like.

“Okay, so wait,” Jordan said when he was finished. “You only like him ‘cuz your programming said so?”

“No,” Taejoon bristled. “Maybe...initially, but not in the same way.”

“Sounds complicated.” She laughed. “Man, Mila would have a laugh at that.”

They both got quiet after that, and Taejoon stared up into the sky, where the sun was now unmistakably starting to sink. Several questions clawed at the back of his mind, but the first one that he verbalized was, “Any word from—?”

“None,” Jordan said.

“Not a single message?”

“Nada.”

“What about sighti—”

“We’re looking, man.” She shook her head, and the beads at the end of her cornrows clicked. “Nothing. Can’t find shit. Mystik’s put all of her contacts on the job, now that she knows where you are. Thinks she might be alive too.”

Taejoon glanced up in the mirror again to check on Octavio, before biting on the inside of the cheek. The answer wasn’t surprising, but still upsetting. 

“Might wanna tell loverboy we’re about to hit dirt,” Jordan said, and rolled down his window for him. A lot of the roads on Gaea weren’t paved, which led to a lot of dirty cars, and was probably about to lead to a dusty Octavio if he didn’t either get inside or lay down.

“Octavio!” Taejoon raised his voice, but didn’t receive a response—or, if he did, he couldn’t hear it over the wind. “Come sit with me!”

Nothing.

“You’re going to get dirty!”

He still heard nothing. With a sigh, he unhooked his seatbelt and half-stood up, sticking his torso out the window as he tried to get a good look at his boyfriend. He remembered the last time he’d done this—yelling at Mila to _put the fireworks down and get back in the car before the police catch up_ —but the thrill of it was outweighed by the lack of response.

“Octavio!” He yelled again to be heard over the wind, and Octavio’s head turned a little towards him. “We’re going to hit dirt roads, soon. It’s going to get dusty back there.”

He swore he could almost hear Octavio’s voice, but it was so weak that he could barely make it out. Taejoon slid back into the truck, and told Jordan, “I can’t hear him. Stop.”

“What’s the magic word?”

He glared, and with a roll of her eyes, she came to a stop on the side of the road. Taejoon pushed his door open and stepped around to the bed of the truck, leaning against it and fixing the man sitting in the back with a look.

“There’s going to be a lot of dirt,” Taejoon tried to persuade him. “If you stay back here, you’re going to get dirty. The roads aren’t like the ones on Psamathe. You should come sit with me."

“I’ll stay back here,” his boyfriend said, and it sounded a little clearer than before, but still not right.

Taejoon stared at him, waiting for him to look up and make eye contact, but he still hadn’t taken off his sunglasses, and he was still doing something on his phone. Feeling both frustrated and worried, Taejoon looked either way, seeing that no cars were coming down the road, before asking,

“Did I do something?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Octavio said, and Taejoon suddenly realized that they were both speaking English, as opposed to Spanish—had he lost that capability, too? “I’m fine. I’ll just lay down.”

Taejoon tapped his fingers against the truck, debating with himself as he tried to think of a response. He really had no idea what had happened, and perhaps it would come back to him later, but for now, he knew he had to tread carefully. Reaching a hand out so that he could touch his boyfriend to reassure him, he said gently, “Octavio—”

But Octavio visibly flinched away from him, shoulders drawing up suddenly as he pressed himself flat against the truck, far from Taejoon’s outstretched fingers. Feeling hurt, Taejoon let his hand drop, unsure of what to say or do next. All of the ways he had felt human before seemed meaningless now—he suddenly felt dirty and contaminated, something the cat dragged in, by the way Octavio was reacting to him. 

Pushing away from the truck, Taejoon took a few steps back, looking up at the pink and orange sky as he tried to collect himself. Jordan watched him with arched eyebrows, and when he got back into the passenger’s side, he shot her a look that warned her to not ask what had just happened. The truck was set back into motion, and they rode on.

A half hour was spent driving straight through dirt roads, and Taejoon kept an eye on Octavio using the rearview mirror, seeing that the other man had curled up on his side, though he couldn’t see what he was doing. Once they were back on paved road, he rested his head against his seatbelt once again, staring blankly at the countryside.

He didn't know what was happening, why Octavio was acting like this. He was frustrated at the other man for closing up, as he tended to do, but was also frustrated with himself for his spotty memory and inability to recall anything that had happened recently. He felt as if he were back at square one, all those months ago when Octavio kept more things to himself. He felt as if progress had been erased, and he'd forgotten how.

The sun set, and stars filled the sky. Taejoon recalled looking up at the sky while on Psamathe—at the dirt tracks, watching Octavio race, and glancing up to see that there were no stars. He hadn’t seen them in a long time, and he wasn't able to tear his eyes away from them now. He wondered if Octavio had ever seen this many stars, if he’d ever seen stars at all.

Another hour, and then the distant buildings of Suotamo came into view over the horizon, bright twinkling lights from commercial buildings starting to drown out the shine of the stars. He swore he could almost see all of the electronic billboards from here—not to the staggeringly high amount as the ones back on Psamathe, but still plenty enough to make the city glow.

“Did ya miss it?” Jordan asked, sounding amused.

“...More than anything.”

“Can’t imagine why,” she said. “If I was on Psamathe, I’d never leave. I’d be on the beach every day.”

“I never went to any of the beaches there.”

“What?! I know you have a robot body and all, but never? Not once? Is loverboy afraid of the water, or somethin’?”

“He has a name,” Taejoon said, faintly annoyed. “Octavio.”

And speaking of him—glancing up into the rearview again, it was hard to see what was going on in the bed of the truck, but he could make out his boyfriend still lying on his side. Perhaps he had fallen asleep there—he had seemed rather sleep-deprived when Taejoon had first regained consciousness. Perhaps he really did have motion sickness on the dropship.

Taejoon adjusted his seatbelt before resting his temple against his window, staring at the city in the distance as it slowly got closer. More cars were on the road here, people on their way home from work and going into the suburbs that sprawled outside of Suotamo. He watched each house as they drove by, all looking the same to him, and the next thing he knew Jordan was hitting his shoulder and saying,

“Wake up.”

With a jolt, Taejoon sat up straight, alarmed. They were now crossing the bridge that would take them straight into the city, side-by-side with several other cars. 

“Did I fall asleep?” He asked, confused.

“Guess so.” Jordan cocked her head to the side. “... _Can_ you fall asleep?”

“I’ve never...” He trailed off before lifting his hand to run his fingers over the control panel on the back of his neck, wondering just what, exactly, that hard-drive had done to him.

He’d never managed such a feat before; sure, he could lock all of his limbs and close his eyes and not think about anything, but that wasn’t the same as sleeping. He had still been alert and aware of everything around him—but he had dozed off just now, something he had thought impossible for the past several months.

He was wide awake now, though, staring at the city around them as they drove through it. The orphanage was on the other end, the poorer end, and he wondered if Octavio had woken up too yet.

Turning his head to look into the bed of the truck, lit up by the billboards around them, he saw his boyfriend stretching his arms above his head, sunglasses off and glancing around him curiously. It was hard to ignore the purple bags beneath his eyes, and Taejoon wanted to say something about them, but he remembered the way that Octavio had flinched away from him, and grimaced.

The small nap he had taken also seemed to have brought back a few more of his missing memories—driving on a highway with Octavio, feeling warm and giddy but for what, he didn’t know. Didn’t quite recall yet. He then frowned; why had Octavio been driving in the first place? Weren’t they supposed to take a bus to the hangar? No, if he was remembering correctly, it was too early in the day to have been heading to the hangar...

“If we get home on time, we can catch the ten o’clock news,” Jordan announced, interrupting his train of thought. "Man, everyone thinks your boyfriend’s dead.”

“We _did_ leave without telling anyone,” Taejoon mumbled, but Jordan shot him a look.

“And...you know. The big-ass explosion,” she said. Taejoon stared at her, and she frowned back, eyebrows furrowing. 

_The big what?_

“You don’t remember that either?” Jordan asked as if reading his mind, and Taejoon shook his head, feeling a distant sense of dread. “Dude...Hammond labs fucking _exploded._ Pipe bomb. Kaboom. Everyone thinks he’s dead. Or that he set the bomb."

Feeling one part confused and another part shocked, Taejoon wondered if that had anything to do with why Octavio was acting weird with him now. Why had the lab exploded? Just what had happened back there that the other man wasn’t willing to disclose with him? He went to run a hand through his hair, and grit his teeth when he remembered that he no longer had a right arm. 

He couldn’t even find it within himself to enjoy the sight of his home around him—he was too busy thinking, trying to remember what had happened, what went on at Hammond, but he kept drawing a blank every single time, and it was making him feel frustrated that he only had bits and pieces to go off of. 

When they got to the orphanage, it looked just as miserable as he remembered it being—the inside was fine, but the outside was blank and grey, solid blocks of concrete stacked on top of one another. It didn’t look like a place where children lived; no chalk drawings or toys outside, not even a stray tennis shoe left forgotten on the grass. The only sign that maybe children lived there was a jump-rope left hanging from the railing of the fire escape, but one of its handles was missing, so it was a miserable jump-rope as well.

“Home sweet home,” Jordan sang, and Taejoon hummed in agreement. She parked the truck behind the building, next to an overflowing donation box filled with children’s clothes from good Samaritans.

Pushing his door open, Taejoon stepped out onto the gravel, glancing around at the apartment buildings surrounding them—rusted rails and boarded up windows, graffiti on trashcans and duct tape covering up holes in the walls. Broken beer bottles and empty cigarette boxes littered the ground, and he stepped around them carefully to the bed of the truck, where Octavio had swung a leg over the side to get over it.

“Do you need any h—”

“I’m fine.”

Octavio jumped to the ground, and landed on the shards of a beer bottle, the sound of crunching glass filling the air. He watched the way his boyfriend gave a full-body flinch, before reaching into the back of the truck and pulling his duffel out. Jordan pulled Octavio’s suitcase for him, and the three of them made their way through the backdoor, a key left dangling from the keyhole to allow them access.

“Because that will help the burglary problem,” Taejoon mumbled, watching Jordan pull the key out.

“I’d like to see them try. I got my brown belt in taekwondo last month!”

Jordan led them down the hallway, flickering bare light bulbs illuminating the crayon drawings on the walls from the younger kids. Octavio almost tripped on a toy car, and Taejoon reached out to help him, but his boyfriend righted himself without his help, ears burning red with embarrassment. 

“Where’s Mystik?” Taejoon decided to ask, and Jordan shrugged.

“Where are we staying?” Octavio's weak voice came from behind them.

“Attic, probably,” Jordan answered, and then pushed a door open, revealing the playroom. 

It looked normal as far as playrooms went—an overflowing toy box, coloring books stacked on top of one another, forgotten costumes discarded on the ground.

But the line of computers against the wall seemed out of place, almost. Ten monitors, each belonging to a specific child, and Taejoon knew that it was because Mystik was still training those in the orphanage to have her set of skills. He’d been one of those kids once.

 _“You want to be rebellious?”_ Mystik had asked he and Mila one day after they had returned from one of their failed foster homes. They were both sat at a computer each, and she patted them on their heads. _“Today, you’ll learn how to put that energy into being productive.”_

Years of staring at a computer, fingers flying across the keyboard, competing with the other kids—whoever did _this_ first got dessert, whoever did _that_ fastest got the first shower of the night—timed, ranked, doing work for Mystik they didn’t quite understand but were eager to complete anyways. Anything that meant earning her affection, and maybe a scoop of ice cream after dinner, too.

He and Mila had been the best of the best. He wondered if anything had changed in his absence, but it all looked to be about the same. A board with kids' names written on it was tacked to the wall, gold stickers next to those who performed the best, and he had always had the most. He was kind of glad to see it still here.

Jordan led them to the second floor, where most of the kids were asleep in their rooms or feigning sleep beneath their covers, playing on their phones. She led them down the end of the hall, where a tightly-wound spiral staircase awaited them. That particular staircase had made Taejoon nauseous as a kid—each step rotated you until you were dizzy, and once you got to the door, it was hard to stay balanced.

He watched Jordan somehow carry his suitcase up that staircase, and reached out a hand to Octavio, a silent offer of help, but his boyfriend, who had taken off his mask, merely pursed his lips and looked away.

Sighing internally, Taejoon followed the girl up to Mystik’s apartment, which took up the third floor of the building, and it was almost like entering a different place entirely. Whereas the rest of the orphanage seemed to be plain gray concrete with little decoration, Mystik’s apartment was a warm brown haven, paneled with wood and lit with candles and gentle lamps. Pillows and knit blankets and tapestries were everywhere, and the woman herself sat at a mahogany table with a young boy of about thirteen.

The young boy was Jordan’s younger brother, Carter, and judging by the fact that he was shoveling ice cream into his mouth, he was equally as talented as her. Taejoon himself had sat in that very spot many times, and he felt a wave of nostalgia hit him at the sight. He was even eating out of the same blue-patterned bowl, too.

“Park,” Mystik said by way of greeting, and got to her feet gracefully, pulling him down in a bone-crushing hug that made him squawk a little. She wasn’t a hugger normally, but this situation was different. “Glad to see you awake, son.”

“Hi, Tae,” Carter said around a mouthful of Rocky Road.

“Hello,” Taejoon told him. Like Jordan, he hadn’t interacted with him much before leaving the orphanage, though Carter had been significantly younger than Jordan when he’d last seen him. Eight or nine, maybe.

“Silva,” Mystik said, and Taejoon turned to see her holding a hand out to him, offering a handshake. Octavio stared at her for a second, eyes flickering between her and her hand, before he asked bluntly,

“Where am I staying?”

“Up here,” his caretaker responded smoothly, letting her hand drop to her side, and Taejoon felt a little embarrassed by Octavio’s rudeness. “Grace, show him the attic.”

Jordan nodded, and walked beneath a hatch in the ceiling, right next to Mystik’s kitchenette. She pulled on a frayed piece of string, and a ladder descended onto the ground with a _creak._ The attic was lit up already, and he wondered if Mystik had already set everything up for them. Octavio climbed the ladder without another word, struggling a little to get his duffel up, while Jordan carried the suitcase up for him. 

She then scaled down, and Octavio crouched by the entrance, as if he were going to rejoin them, but he then reached down and grabbed hold of the ladder instead. The hatch closed behind him, and they all heard him stomp away from the entrance, followed by the squeaky sound of him flopping onto the boxspring bed up there.

A moment of silence passed.

“I don’t like him,” Carter said.

“He’s normally...nicer,” Taejoon sighed, wanting to pace back and forth in nervousness, but even with Octavio up in the attic, it was still too cramped in here. “He’s mad at me, I think. I don’t know.”

“Wouldn’t it be funny if you came all this way just for you two to break up?” Jordan asked, and Taejoon started to panic at the thought.

“Grace,” Mystik admonished, seeing his distress.

“Sorry, ma’am.”

“Make yourself useful and turn on the news.”

Jordan rolled her eyes. “Yes ma’am.”

Taejoon looked over at his former caretaker, taking in the lines of her face and the exhausted bags beneath her eyes, before silently wrapping his arms around her in a hug.

Though he had talked to her frequently these past few months, had planned to make it back home for weeks, he’d never thought he’d actually make it. Was always paranoid that he would fuck up, somehow, that something would happen right before he could grab hold of it—but he was so, so glad to be wrong, for once.

“...I missed you,” he allowed himself to say, and Mystik patted him on the back stiffly. 

“Missed you too, son. The others just aren’t the same as you.”

“I’m right here, y’know,” Jordan said as she flipped through the channels on Mystik’s little TV.

“I’m sure they’re fine,” Taejoon said, smiling at Carter, who had looked dismayed at the implication that he wasn’t as good as him. He knew that feeling well.

“Yes, well, I had a spot of trouble with Xiaolu, today. She noticed I had ordered more food than usual, but still had the same number of kids.” Mystik shook her head a little, lips thinned into a line. “Had to lie and say I was cheating on my diet to get her to stop asking questions.”

“I’m sorry for all of the trouble.”

“None of that—not yet, anyway. You’re no use to me on Psamathe, son.” 

He smiled at her once again, before looking down to see one of her cats brushing up against his leg, looking up at him with curious green eyes. He bent down, reaching his left hand out to pet it, but a sudden shriek from above made him jump, and everyone in the room looked up at the same moment.

Before he even knew it, he was already tugging on the string to the hatch so hard that he nearly pulled it from its place in the ceiling, climbing up the ladder two steps at a time with his long legs as he emerged into the attic—because it was his boyfriend who had screamed, and he was terrified that barely five minutes after getting home, Octavio had already gotten hurt.

Old Christmas lights lit up the attic space, hanging above a creaky bed and several boxes and chests filled with stuff. Broken toys, dusty books, and spare parts. Though filled to the brim with things, it didn’t feel like a storage space—just crowded. Somehow comfortably so. 

Taejoon barely managed to avoid bumping into a tower of books as he tried to see what was wrong with his boyfriend, who was standing there with his face in his hands, shoulders shaking almost imperceptibly. The contents of his suitcase had been dumped on the bed, and Taejoon’s broken arm rested atop the other man’s clothes and video games, gleaming beneath the golden Christmas lights.

“What’s wrong?” Taejoon asked hurriedly, approaching his boyfriend and touching his shoulder as he checked for any sort of injury on his person—only to be shoved away harshly, so unexpectedly that despite his robotic strength and grace, he stumbled backward in shock.

“Don’t touch me!” Octavio half-yelled at him, voice too weak to raise it much, but it still sounded harsh to him. Hurt and, more importantly, confused, Taejoon opened his mouth to speak, but he wasn’t sure what he wanted to ask first. _What happened to you? What did I do wrong?_

It was then that he saw it—dark marks against the skin of his boyfriend's neck, black and purple bruises that seemed recent. Concern exploded inside of Taejoon, even more than he already felt, and he was sure that the other man could practically feel the distress in his voice as he asked,

"What happened to your neck?"

Octavio picked up a book from one of the boxes around him, an old volume that hadn’t been read in years, and raised his hand as if he were going to throw it at Taejoon. Getting the message, Taejoon quickly climbed back down the ladder, still in shock, and Octavio pulled it up after him, slamming the hatch closed.

Anxiety gnawed at Taejoon from the inside, confused over the whole situation, and scared, too. He didn’t know what was wrong with Octavio, what was making him act this way, what had caused those bruises around his neck, nor was he sure why the other man suddenly seemed allergic to his touch. 

( _What if they're connected?_ A little voice inside of him asked, and he wanted to scream.)

Taejoon stared up at the hatch, half-expecting—no, _wanting_ —it to open again, but it didn’t, and he looked around at the others, waiting for them to ask just what had happened—but all three of the people in the room were staring at the TV screen.

He turned to face it too, and for a moment, didn’t understand what he was seeing. A newscaster sitting at a gleaming blue desk while the thumbnail of a video showed in the upper right corner, talking about _‘recently discovered footage’_ from _‘the incident that had taken place at Hammond labs’._

The thumbnail suddenly took up the whole screen, and Taejoon was now staring at black-and-white footage of himself on top of Octavio, hand unmistakably wrapped around his throat. He watched the way his boyfriend struggled against him, clawing at the hand on his neck, but nothing he did managed to get Taejoon off of him.

Taejoon remembered thinking to himself, riding home with Octavio atop his motorcycle so long ago, that it would be easy to hurt the other man. That his new body, tall and robotic and strong, could easily crush the smaller one of his charge—and those thoughts made their return as he watched the security footage, saw the way he weighed down on Octavio, who seemed so small and _helpless,_ and he felt sick.

The footage then cut back to the newscaster, who continued smoothly, as if he hadn’t just watched such a disturbing scene.

“The authorities have stated that, due to this new footage, Octavio Silva is now presumed dead, and they are pursuing the rogue robot as the prime suspect in setting the explosion. A vigil for the late heir will be held tomorrow night on Psamathe—that is to say, morning for us Gaeans.” He looked down at the papers in his hands, shuffling them a bit, before continuing. “And now, a word from Hammond about this rogue robot—are MRVNs still safe? We’ll get back to you after—”

Taejoon felt sick. He was physically incapable of throwing up, but he felt like he just might. He looked over at Mystik, who didn’t seem surprised, but her face was rather severe. Jordan was giving Taejoon a wide-eyed stare from beside the TV, before she edged around him, grabbed Carter by his wrist, and pulled him out of Mystik’s apartment. She slammed the door behind her as Taejoon struggled to think, to breathe, to do anything, but he couldn’t.

He so desperately wanted Mystik to say that the footage was doctored, made-up so that Hammond could find someone to blame for _everything_ , but when he looked up at his former caretaker all she did was sigh and say,

“They must have backed up the surveillance footage to a third party. I thought I had gotten rid of it.”

Taejoon sat on the edge of her couch, face buried in his hand before sliding it up to grip his short hair. He couldn’t remember anything, and he felt so fucking _sick_ —why had he hurt Octavio? Just what had happened back there? How much had he done to him, how badly had he _hurt_ him?

Taejoon's eyes burned, and he realized with a jolt that he was crying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im glad that a lot of ppl liked octane's pov but i think its going to be entirely crypto's pov for the rest of the story, unless i can find some way to have it alternate in chapters or between chapters without feeling disjointed
> 
> tysm for all of ur support !!!!! i'm aiming to end this at 15 chapters but we shall See.
> 
> love u!!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TY EVERYONE FOR UR NICE COMMENTS ;__;
> 
> this unseats chapters 5 and 11 [8.7k words] as the longest chapter so far...11.3k!
> 
> haha sorry
> 
> ANYWAYS...tws for this chapter:  
> references/allusions to ptsd and past child abuse  
> brief descriptions of violence

Taejoon spent the night curled up on Mystik’s couch after she had pat him on the back and told him that she would talk to him tomorrow. One part of him wanted to beg her to stay up, to explain to him what was going on, but he saw the dark bags under her eyes and reluctantly told her good night even as his mind was reeling.

All he could think of was the way he had looked in that footage, menacing and monstrous, suffocating Octavio one-handedly. It reminded him of that time back at the department store—one moment standing there, and the next, choking that security guard beneath him. He had no recollection of getting from point A to point B; it had just _happened,_ and he'd attacked someone.

He remembered brushing it off as simply dregs from his programming, an instant response to seeing Octavio get hurt—but now it seemed _far_ more sinister, and he wanted to kick himself for disregarding it so quickly. Taejoon had _seriously_ hurt Octavio, and it was all due to his own negligence.

He felt exhausted, and before now, that would have meant nothing; simply a human emotion trapped inside a robot body—but now, he was _actually_ tired. Eyes drifting shut, brain running on fumes, movements slow and lethargic. He had no idea what was happening to him, but he knew that he didn’t want to sleep.

What if, when he opened his eyes next, he was on top of Octavio once again, trying to finish the job? What if he hurt Mystik, or Jordan, or Carter, or any of the other kids? Could he be trusted around them?

Taejoon got up to pace back and forth on Mystik’s favorite rug, and no doubt she would have told him off, but right now she was sleeping in the next room, vulnerable. Just like the kids sleeping below him, and Octavio above him. He didn’t know why she seemed fine with letting him in the orphanage after seeing that footage, but he wasn’t going to let himself be taken over by whatever lived inside of him.

He was a walking time bomb, and no one seemed to care. No one except Octavio and Jordan.

_Jordan..._

What if he could convince her to drive him somewhere else? He would come back in the morning, but for now he would sleep somewhere else, away from the others. She was so willing to help, but then again, he was reminded of the way her eyes had burned as she stared at him, and how quickly she had pulled Carter from the room. She didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him.

He would have to do it himself.

Taejoon opened the door to Mystik’s apartment slowly so that it would not creak, before walking carefully down the twisting staircase until he was on the second floor. The sound of kids snoring filled the hallway, and he crept quietly by, knowing it was for their sakes that he was running away like a coward.

Taejoon left the way they’d come in, out the back door, and pocketed the key still hanging from it. He walked around the other side of the building, trying to remember the directions to his blasted apartment from here. It had been a while, but it was only a few blocks away...wait, should he have grabbed a face mask, or a way to cover himself? He wasn’t thinking straight...he was on the run once again, wasn’t he?...Gaea was safe, but he didn't want to risk anything...

Feeling as though he was being watched, Taejoon craned his head and looked up, seeing a figure sitting beneath the moonlight on the roof of the orphanage. They had their knees drawn up to their chest, and though their face was in shadows thanks to the way the moon lit up their back, he was sure that they were watching him. 

Taejoon stared at them, wondering if this was a stranger from any of the surrounding apartments, but then the person’s face was lit up by their phone, and he saw that it was Octavio. 

Freezing, Taejoon wondered if the other man had seen him or not—his eyes were staring at his phone, face blank, but he didn’t seem alarmed or scared like he had earlier when Taejoon had gotten close to him. He considered saying something, trying to get his boyfriend’s attention, but suddenly a tinny voice filled the air, as if speaking through a cell phone.

The voice was speaking in Spanish—and Taejoon could not understand it, which led him to believe that he had truly lost his multilingual capabilities, but the person sounded a hell of a lot like Kishou Silva.

Was Octavio calling his father?...Was he _that_ scared of Taejoon?

( _Of course he is._

 _You hurt him._ )

The voice was then cut off abruptly, as though Octavio had hung up on it, and then a female voice was heard, speaking in English this time.

“C’mon, it’s been two days. I know you’re out there, somewhere. They haven’t found a body yet. I’m counting on you. If you’re alive, I’m going to kick your ass, but please call me back, Silva.”

Ah. So he was playing voicemails.

Guilt flooded him—when they had planned to leave, it had never intended to be like this. No faking deaths or massive explosions, but he had contributed to the idea that Octavio was dead, and now, Octavio couldn’t do anything about it lest Psamathean or Gaean authorities come looking for them. 

His boyfriend began playing another voicemail, and Taejoon glanced around to see if anyone was out this late at night; he’d rather the neighbors not hear that someone thought to be dead was currently hiding at Ticacek Orphanage, but nobody seemed out. Still though, it was bothering him, so he timidly called out,

“Why don’t you go to bed?”

Octavio nearly dropped his phone, and his eyes flickered down to meet Taejoon’s for the first time in days. They stared at one another, neither saying anything, and he expected the man to run away like he had earlier, but he didn't move. Just kept staring.

Taejoon was about to break the heavy silence when Octavio suddenly said,

“I don’t want to.”

It was a little hard to hear him due to his weak voice, but he didn't want to ask the other to speak up out of guilt.

“I’m leaving,” Taejoon told him, and his voice cracked in the middle, which was embarrassing. “So you can sleep.”

_So I can’t hurt you._

“You’re just going to leave me?” Octavio asked, and turned his phone off, so that Taejoon could no longer make out the details of his face from this far down. Scuffing the ground with his shoe and kicking aside a broken beer bottle, he nodded, before saying out loud,

“Yes.”

“After all that?”

“I’ll come back tomorrow.”

He was doing this for everyone’s own good, and he thought Octavio would feel comfortable with this decision, but the tense quiet that followed made him doubt his judgment. The din of the city was the only noise to be heard, distant cars honking and music from an unidentified source, and after a while Octavio stood up from his place on the roof and kicked aside a panel, soon disappearing from view without another word.

Taejoon was left somewhat frustrated. He didn’t know what the other man _wanted_ from him—if he wanted Taejoon to leave him alone or to stay here. He knew what he _needed_ to do, which was get away from everyone lest something overtake him like it had before, but he didn’t want Octavio to feel like he was abandoning him. He didn't want to make the other feel _worse_.

Taejoon ran a hand through his hair for what felt like the hundredth time that night, thinking to himself and crunching glass beneath his feet. He should stay away from everyone, yes, but he didn’t have anywhere to go, and he didn’t want Octavio to think that he was leaving him completely...and he didn’t want to make Mystik panic, not after all she’d done to get him home...

It wasn’t that Taejoon had thought all of his problems would disappear as soon as he got to Gaea, but he had certainly thought that it would be a lot easier than this. 

Coming to a solution, Taejoon walked back around behind the orphanage and climbed inside the bed of Mystik’s truck, folding his long legs a little so that he could lay inside. He took off his suit jacket—which was missing a sleeve—and threw it over himself like a blanket. He then closed his eyes, but something was bothering him. 

He was too close to the orphanage, too close to hurting the others...what was stopping him from simply entering the back door should he reanimate?

Straightening back up, he dug into his jacket pocket, and pulled out the key Jordan had left hanging from the door. He then threw it as forcefully as he could into the air, and heard the little _clink_ of it landing on the roof. Satisfied, he laid back down, and let sleep overtake him.

* * *

 _He'd never been able to feel Octavio, even though he sometimes imagined that he could. Imagined that he could feel the other's warm skin, soft hair, the roughness in his palms from years of climbing trees as a kid. Imagined that when Taejoon ran his hand lightly over Octavio's side, afraid to hurt him, that he could_ really _feel him beneath his touch._

_But he couldn't. Not in this body._

_And yet somehow, at this moment, he swore that he could actually feel Octavio's throat convulsing beneath his fingers. Swore he could feel the panicked puffs of breath against his wrist, swore that he could feel the way he squirmed beneath him in alarm._

_You're so strong, a voice inside of him said, and his fingers tightened on instinct, unforgiving. You're so_ fucking _strong._

_Octavio's wide eyes were bloodshot, staring up at him with pure, unadulterated terror. An expression he'd never seen on the other's face before, and yet, he was sure now that it would be burned into his memory permanently. Taejoon pressed his hand even further down, and heard Octavio gasp._

_You're so strong._

* * *

A finger was poking at his face. Then another finger, this one feeling a lot smaller than the first. There was a giggle, and then someone pinched his cheek.

Opening his eyes to glare at whoever had woken him up, Taejoon came face-to-face with three kids, all between the ages of six and twelve, leaned against the truck and prodding at him. 

“What do you want,” he mumbled thickly, turning on his side to rub at his eyes, and one of the kids piped up,

“Mystik wants to see you. She’s worrriieeed.”

Judging by the fact that the sun was rising, it was well after seven. Sitting up, Taejoon felt his neck crack, and winced. It was something he hadn’t felt in a long time, and was almost foreign to him now. The three kids scattered, running through the back door, and Taejoon clambered out of the truck a little stiffly, feeling weird. He hadn’t slept in a long time, either. It felt disconcerting to wake up.

He was also sure that he had been dreaming, though he wasn't sure of what. It was yet another thing he hadn't done in quite a while, and trying to remember its contents felt like trying to hold water in his hands. Slipping through the cracks, before ultimately leaving his palms empty. 

It didn't really matter, anyways.

The orphanage was eating breakfast when he finally stumbled into the kitchen, a dozen kids sitting in a dining area while eating sugary cereal or waiting for pancakes. Mystik, Jordan, and an older boy Taejoon had never met before were in the kitchen, moving around each other with ease while they made breakfast.

He and Mila had never had to cook breakfast, partly because they were both disastrous in the kitchen, but seeing Mystik flip pancakes to the great amusement of a gaggle of eight-year-olds brought back nostalgic memories. Pancakes had been Mila's absolute favorite as a child, to the point that her twelfth birthday cake had _been_ a stack of pancakes covered in whipped cream. 

As he recalled these memories fondly, he suddenly noticed Octavio sitting at the counter by himself, watching the three work with bleary eyes, though they sharpened when the other man in turn noticed him. They stared at one another from across the kitchen in silence, until Taejoon’s hand was being tugged on by a young boy who eagerly wanted to show him his multiplication tables.

“Mystik said you were the best,” the boy said, pointing at his papers proudly. “I can get them all done in forty-nine seconds!”

“That’s impressive,” Taejoon hummed, seeing that all of the answers were correct. “I think my high score was about thirty-five.”

“Thirty-five? That’s easy,” a girl began to brag. “ _I_ did mine in twenty-three, once.”

“Stop lying, Lindsay.”

“I’m not lying! It’s _true!_ Ask Mystik!”

“Liaaaar,” the boy said, and the two began to argue over who got higher scores on their timed multiplication tables, and a bunch of the other kids jumped in. Taejoon edged away from them, not wanting to get caught up in their debates, and looked up to see Jordan giving him a weird look. He opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off, asking,

“How many pancakes do you want?”

“I don’t think I can eat,” he answered, and she scoffed.

“You didn’t think you could sleep either, so I’m gonna ask again—how many pancakes do you want?”

“One,” he sighed, and she nodded to herself before turning away from him.

Breakfast was soon served to those who had wanted pancakes, and Taejoon sat himself far away from the children. Though he felt better now and not like he was about to slip into unconsciousness, he still didn't trust himself to be around them yet. He felt dirty, contaminated, and monstrous, and it was better for everyone involved if he kept his distance.

He stared down at his pancake, wondering if he should even bother, before curiosity got the better of him and he cut off a piece. He chewed on it slowly, savoring the taste—he hadn’t even added butter or syrup, but the sheer novelty of eating something for the first time in forever made it seem far better than it actually was. He still had no idea where the food was going to go, but he swallowed anyway, and then set his fork aside to watch the others eat.

His eyes slid over the heads of the children and honed in on Octavio, who was eating at the counter, staring hard at his phone and chewing slowly. The dark circles under his eyes were still very prominent, and the marks on his neck had the beginning of a greenish tint forming. His hair was messy, sticking up in the back, and there was a few days worth of stubble on his chin. Octavio had never been very presentable back on Psamathe unless made to look so, but he’d never looked _this_ bad, and the guilt Taejoon had felt last night came flooding back tenfold.

( _You hurt him._

 _You were supposed to_ protect _him._ )

The kids finished eating and carried all of their plates over to the kitchen, setting their dishes next to the sink before running off to do whatever it is they did in the morning. Taejoon carried his own mostly-uneaten pancake over, and offered it to Jordan, who rolled her eyes but took it off his plate. He was glad she didn’t seem so cautious of him today, but the same could not be said for Octavio, who was still glaring at his phone, as if by doing so he could ignore the fact that Taejoon existed.

“Morning,” Mystik told Taejoon, giving him an impassive look over her glasses. “Wondered where you’d run off to. Was afraid I’d lost you so soon already.”

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, bowing his head a little in shame under her scrutiny. “I slept outside.”

“Why?”

“I...” He wasn’t sure how to word it without instantly bringing the mood down, and he stared at his feet, unable to meet her eyes, knowing that she would see right through him. Mystik gave him a pat on his cheek, before saying loudly,

“Silva, come wash dishes.”

“I don’t know how,” Octavio said without looking up from his phone, his other hand pushing around the mushy remains of his pancakes with his fork.

“You’re going to learn, boy,” Mystik said, and took his plate from him. He chased after it with his fork before finally glancing up, giving her a dirty look before sighing and getting to his feet with obvious reluctance. He joined Taejoon in the kitchen, avoiding his gaze until Mystik said, “Park’s going to teach you.”

“What?” Octavio asked, voice cracking, while Taejoon pointed out,

“I only have one arm.”

“Right, that.” Mystik turned to Jordan, who was now downing a glass of orange juice. “Go get Carter.”

She bounced away to fetch her brother, and Taejoon was sat at the counter where Octavio had previously been sitting. As they waited, his boyfriend looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there, biting on the inside of his cheek and checking his phone every couple of seconds, as if he were waiting for something. Jordan returned with Carter, who had Taejoon’s arm in hand, and as soon as Octavio caught sight of it he left the room without another word.

Taejoon sat in penitent silence as Carter reattached his arm for him, using a few tools he didn’t know the names of to get it to reconnect properly. He still couldn't recall why he had lost his arm in the first place; those very final hours seemed lost in the recesses of his mind, though he sensed them lurking in there somewhere. They just had yet to resurface.

After several painstaking minutes Carter clapped his hands and said,

“All done! Can you move it?”

Taejoon looked down at his limp hand, willing his fingers to move—and they did, but it felt...off. Not that he could necessarily _feel_ it even before this, but it moved in a clunky manner, robotic, and he was unable to achieve fine motor control like he could with his other hand.

“You’re probably going to need a new arm entirely,” Carter said, scratching at the back of his head with one of his tools, which earned him a judgmental look from Jordan. “Some of the port was damaged, so it’s not going to move right. It’s like having a weak signal to your brain."

“I know somebody who can help,” Mystik said cryptically, before dismissing Carter, and then instructed Jordan to go get Octavio.

“Am I a delivery girl?” Jordan complained, but she obliged anyways, and left the two of them alone in the kitchen. Taejoon was still trying to move his hand properly, twisting his wrist, but every movement felt shuddering and slow. Mystik placed her hand on his shoulder, distracting him, and he looked up to meet her intense blue eyes.

“How you feeling, son?”

“...Terrible,” he said honestly, and stood up, not liking being so still. He tugged at the hem of his suit jacket, which looked grimy, not having been washed in quite a while. “I keep thinking about last night.”

“The footage.” Mystik nodded in understanding. “As promised, I was watching you and removing all traces of your entry. Every time that woman’s I.D. was used it was logged, and I deleted it, but now I’m not quite sure if it wasn’t backed up to another source.”

“I don’t care about that,” Taejoon said, and he knew he sounded childish, but it wasn’t what was bothering him the most. “I mean...the way I hurt Octavio.”

Desperate for her to understand him, he started describing that time at the department store: the way he had watched Octavio get shoved to the ground, and how he’d blacked out only to find himself on top of the person who had pushed him. The way his fingers had been tight around that person's neck until the security guard’s face was the color of puce, and how he had no recollection of getting there. How he’d thought it was a result of the programming he was still chained to, but now he feared that it was something worse, something _deeper._

He was reminded to breathe when Mystik put her hand on his shoulder again, something she’d used to do to him as a child whenever he’d gone into long explanations—whether it be defending why he and Mila had been kicked out of yet another home, or why he hadn’t performed as well at his multiplication tables as he had the day before.

He quieted and stared at her, waiting for her to say something, because her lips were turned up at the corners like she found him amusing.

“It’s nothing like that,” she told him, and he stared at her, confused.

“What do you mean?”

“You did what you did because you were messed with. I don’t know if you remember, but you had been attacked by Stalkers.” Mystik mimed ripping something, and continued, “They put a Stalker chip in you.”

Though hearing the phrase _they put a Stalker chip in you_ was quite alarming, it was infinitely more relieving than the thought that something violent and dangerous was lurking inside of Taejoon, waiting to come out when his defenses were down.

He was mostly reassured by her words, though he still felt a lingering sense of paranoia. Reaching up with his right hand, he ran his fingers over the port at the back of his neck, but realized that he couldn’t feel it as he had before.

While Taejoon had never felt anything the same as he had in his previous body, he had at least received a sort of signal in his brain telling him that he was touching something, or _being_ touched. And while he had that same signal indicating that his neck was being touched, the feeling was lost in his right arm.

He glared at his curled fingers before running his hand over the granite counter, but he felt nothing at all. When he finally looked back up after several minutes of grabbing at things in frustration in an effort to feel _something_ , he saw Octavio standing there, picking at his fingers while Jordan started instructing him on how to wash dishes.

It reminded Taejoon of when he had tried to teach the other man how to fold his own clothes, and he smiled to himself at the memory of Octavio struggling, but it quickly faded away as he remembered what had followed.

He tried making eye contact with Octavio, wanting to relay to him the information Mystik had told him in case he didn’t know, but his boyfriend’s shoulders hunched as he neared, and he figured that the only reason he hadn’t run away again was because Mystik was watching him like a hawk. Biting on his lower lip, Taejoon left the kitchen, and returned upstairs to the attic.

Octavio’s suitcase was strewn haphazardly on the floor, and his clothes were on the bed, wrinkly because the man had evidently slept on top of them instead of putting them away. Taejoon sorted through all of his things before finding the clothes they had bought a while ago, that green jacket and cuffed pair of jeans that he’d only gotten to wear out once.

He shucked off his suit jacket and pants before pulling on this new outfit, and also found a baseball cap with the old version of the Apex Games logo on it balanced atop a teetering box. He adjusted it so that it would hang low over his eyes, feeling satisfied with his cover.

He climbed back down the ladder and down the stairs, moving smoothly around the many kids running wild in the halls. Though he hadn’t lived here in several years, it was easy to fall back into the motions of living with so many other people. He wondered how Octavio felt about it—aside from a few maids, Octavio had been relatively alone in his mansion for most, if not all, of his life, and it must be hard to adjust to all of these sudden changes.

He caught sight of his boyfriend as he left—saw him scrubbing furiously at a stain on a plate, evidently annoyed by the fact that it wasn’t coming off, and he thought his expression was rather cute, but he didn’t say anything. Just left in silence, hoping that nobody would ask any questions.

Taejoon passed by many people on the sidewalk, none of which gave him a second glance. He kept his hands buried in his pockets, hoping that nobody would notice the sleekness of his arms, because aside from them he passed as human in this outfit. 

Taejoon passed by the old convenience store he and Mila had used to hang around, though its windows were boarded up and the letters on the sign were beginning to peel off. The old pothole in the road he’d used to crash into with his bike had been paved. The mural on the side of the local doctor’s office dedicated to his late wife had been painted over, and the streets seemed more...clean.

Taejoon knew that not everything would be the same after over a year, and that most of these changes were small, but it was perturbing to him how it felt so... _different_. He wondered what the state of his apartment would be in—if it had been left to rot, windows shattered and doors broken in. If his things had been raided and taken as evidence for his, quote unquote, crimes. 

He rounded the corner, coming to a stop in front of his old address, and stared at what it had become: shiny white condos, brand new, obviously just having finished or about to finish construction.

The sudden cleanliness of the streets and the covering of potholes that had caused him grief for years made a little more sense; they were converting his old building into something more luxurious, something that most people living in this part of town couldn’t even afford anyways.

It was much more upsetting to him than he had initially thought it would be—it had been the first thing he’d done once moving out of the orphanage, getting his own place. Sure it had been cluttered, and the water didn’t work half the time, and the neighbors were annoying, but it had been his.

 _His_ that he had bought with his own hard-earned money, plastered posters of things he found interesting all over its walls whereas before he had not been allowed to decorate his room at the orphanage. _His_ where he had hidden things all over his room, snacks that Mila liked to steal when she came over or games that she had liked to 'borrow'. _His,_ and yet, no longer his.

Now it was gone.

Taejoon stared bitterly at the ornate pillars that framed the gleaming glass doors, trying so hard to stand out against the rest of this bleak street. He had also been planning on visiting Mila’s apartment, but he instead turned on his heel and walked back to the orphanage, feeling a sense of loss for what felt like the hundredth time in recent memory.

* * *

“ _You_ are a fugitive, and _you_ are dead,” Mystik said bluntly at dinner, passing out slices of casserole. Taejoon’s portion was decidedly smaller than everyone else’s, and he didn’t know if it was because she was just being considerate and wanted to make him feel included, or if she was trying to tempt him into eating at least a small amount of food. “So naturally, I’ve created you fake identities.”

“Naturally,” Taejoon said, and Mystik chose to ignore the slight contempt in his voice. He was still hung up on his apartment having been turned into something unrecognizable, and now he had to mourn the loss of his identity _again._

Once she had finished passing out dinner, she gave Taejoon a fake I.D. with his face on it, though sightly altered so that Hyeon Kim, his new persona, didn’t look exactly like Taejoon Park. She then handed Octavio, who was sitting right across from Taejoon, his own I.D. He watched his boyfriend scowl at it, and wondered just how bad it was.

“The good thing is, that picture of you they’re using on the news is already different enough from how you currently look,” Mystik told him. Octavio’s scowl didn’t let up, and he tossed the I.D. aside sourly, cutting up his casserole with harsh movements like he was angry at it.

Taejoon glimpsed the name on the I.D.—Ángelo Reyes—and understood, somewhat, why his boyfriend was upset, though he chose not to say anything about it for now. 

“Fake identity aside, I also encourage you both to wear face coverings when you go outside. Though the authorities are focusing on Psamathe, we can’t risk you getting recognized here.” Mystik locked eyes with Taejoon then. “That means stop sleeping outside."

To give himself something to do, he began cutting up his casserole as well, murmuring out a _‘yes ma’am’._

“The kids already know to call you by these names, so that shouldn’t be any problem.” One of her cats leaped into her lap, and she shoved it unceremoniously off of her, causing the kids to giggle. “Oh quiet, all of you. No cats at the dinner table.”

“How long are we staying here?” Octavio asked, but he didn’t seem to be addressing this question to anyone in particular, just staring hard at his plate as he pushed his food around.

Mystik gave him a look, like she was displeased, and Taejoon once again felt embarrassed on Octavio’s behalf. He understood the other’s standoffish nature with him at the moment, though he had no idea why he was being like this to...well, everyone.

“As long as you need,” Mystik said. “Preferably, as long as the authorities are still looking for Kim.”

The sudden usage of his fake name being used, as opposed to _‘Park’_ like she had been saying all the way up until this moment, left him feeling sick to his stomach. He had already gotten used to everything, had fallen back into the motions of being treated like he had been previously, but this new name was about to make all of that fall apart. He hated it almost as much as he had hated not having a name at all. At least back then, he didn’t have to hear the _wrong_ name.

Octavio also obviously shared displeasure at this name, opening his mouth like he wanted to say something, before pressing his lips into a thin line and averting his gaze.

Dinner continued loudly, and Taejoon tried not to watch Octavio throughout it, but it was hard not to when he didn’t have anything to do. Carter reached over and took Taejoon's portion of casserole but he didn’t care, just kept glancing around the room, gaze occasionally lingering on his boyfriend before he quickly looked at something else.

The other man finished his dinner rather quickly and left abruptly, stomping his way upstairs without a _‘thank you’_ or _‘good night’_. Taejoon turned to see what Mystik thought of this, and saw her eyes following Octavio’s movements sharply, lips thinned into a line.

After dinner Taejoon helped wash dishes, trying to get used to operating his arm without the precise movement he was used to, though he was dropping plates more often than not. Jordan laughed at him and even whipped him with a wet rag, something he was glad that he could not feel anymore, before she left him alone with Mystik to put the younger kids to bed. 

Mystik wasn’t washing dishes, content to let him figure out how to do it himself with his faulty arm, and she leaned against the counter beside him with her arms folded over her chest, watching him intently. Feeling as though she was trying to X-ray him, he mumbled out,

“What?”

“Something’s bothering you,” she said simply. “Are you not happy to be home?”

“I am. It’s just...different.”

“How so?”

“...Have you seen what they’ve done to my old place?”

“The condos? I have.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, it’s not just that,” he said defensively, not sure how to explain himself. “My apartment, my name, Mila...everything’s gone. I’m home, but...it doesn’t feel like it.”

“If it makes you feel better, I managed to salvage some of your things,” Mystik said with a light smile that quickly faded. “It’s all up in the attic.”

“Thank you.” A glass slipped between his fingers, but thankfully it was low enough in the sink that when it dropped it didn’t shatter. He winced and picked it up more firmly this time, trying to hold on as tightly as he could while he wiped it down. “And...it’s also Octavio.”

“Ángelo,” Mystik corrected, and he scowled.

“I am not calling him that.”

“You'd better get used to it, son.”

“I don’t want to,” Taejoon said, feeling resentful as he nearly dropped the glass again. “I just want to feel normal, and _nothing_ is normal. _We_ aren’t normal.”

“You better fix it, then.” Mystik bent down to pick up one of her cats, the one with curious green eyes, before she walked around so that she was on the opposite side of the counter, facing him. “Do you simply let faulty code go untouched, or do you go back and change it?”

“Please don’t use coding metaphors with me right now.” Taejoon shook his head, growing more and more frustrated with the dishes, before he set the glass down and turned off the sink entirely lest he accidentally break something out of anger. “I can’t just fix it. I fucked up.”

“But you didn’t. It wasn’t _you_ , Kim.”

“Do _not_ call me that!” He raised his voice, but instantly felt regret at the way her eyes narrowed. He began to wring his hands together, the mounting anxiety inside of him reaching its peak as he mumbled out an apology for yelling. Mystik sighed, rolling her eyes, before telling him,

“You may not like it, but it’s in your best interest. As well as it's in your best interest to go talk to your little boyfriend, because I’m afraid that he might do something drastic if he continues on like this.”

Taejoon sighed, scrubbing one of his hands down his face as he remembered Octavio last night on the rooftop, playing those voicemails out loud. He agreed with her that his boyfriend probably wasn’t in the best place mentally, but he didn’t want to make it worse either, and he felt that he would if he tried talking to him. Though he was relieved that it hadn’t truly been him who had hurt Octavio, he knew that the other man most likely did not see it that way, and he couldn’t blame him.

Mystik seemed to grow tired of watching him struggle, and ushered him out of the kitchen so that she could wash the dishes herself, though he felt that this was more so that he could have no excuse to not go up and talk to Octavio. With a sigh he made his way upstairs, spotting Carter waiting beneath Mystik’s apartment, sitting on the twisting staircase and playing a video game.

“She’s downstairs,” Taejoon told him.

“Aw. I wanted ice cream. Can you give me some?”

“Uh.” Taejoon glanced around, trying to think of an excuse, before deciding to just tell him the truth. “I’m actually going up to talk to my boyfriend, and I don’t really want anyone in there.”

“Oh,” Carter said. “So you guys can do adult stuff? Like kiss? Or fight?”

Feeling his face burn, Taejoon nudged him with his foot, and said, “Get lost.”

Watching the boy disappear around the corner, Taejoon took a breath to steel himself before climbing the stairs, twisting and turning until he arrived at Mystik’s apartment. Entering it quietly, he saw that her lamp had been left on, and the string hanging from the ceiling was swaying slightly, as if the hatch had recently been closed. Taejoon walked directly beneath it, and called out,

“Octavio?”

There was no response, and he crossed his arms a little awkwardly, trying not to feel foolish as he kept speaking.

“Can we talk? Please?”

He began to pace as he waited for an answer, wringing his hands once again when he received nothing but silence. Perhaps he was on the roof again? Taejoon considered opening up the hatch so that he could see if he was there, but he didn’t want to risk startling the other. 

He didn’t have to wonder for long—the hatch suddenly opened, and the ladder descended. Taejoon looked up to see Octavio sitting crisscrossed at the entrance; the opening of the hatch was an invitation to talk, but the way he was sitting was also a clear denial of entry. That was fine. Taejoon didn’t want to make his boyfriend any more uncomfortable than he already undoubtedly was.

“I...found out about what happened,” Taejoon told him, unsure if the other man had figured out that he knew. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that I did that to you.”

Octavio cocked his head to the side, but didn’t say anything, just watched him, and it was making him feel even more anxious.

“Uhm...I know this is probably really hard for you. We hadn’t planned anything this...drastic.” Why was he so bad at speaking? Why did he so often fail to verbalize his feelings and thoughts? He felt so frustrated, and Octavio’s lack of response certainly wasn’t helping, but there was nothing that he could do about it.

Craning his head up to meet his boyfriend’s eyes, he offered hesitantly, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Octavio said, and god, he really hated how hoarse the other’s voice was, a constant reminder of what Taejoon had done. 

“Okay.” Taejoon felt disheartened by this, but he wanted to respect the other man’s boundaries, so he didn’t press upon the issue further. “...And if you’re upset about your new name, I can ask Mystik to change it for you.”

“It’s fine.” 

“Are you sure?”

“I’ll get over it.” Octavio uncrossed his legs, placing his feet on the top rung of the ladder. His leg was shaking, bouncing up and down from nervous energy, and Taejoon watched his movements silently. His boyfriend took his phone out of his pocket and glanced at it, before sighing out and setting it aside. “Are you happy to be home?”

Taejoon blinked in surprise at the fact that he was now being asked a question. He struggled to think of an answer because it was, in short, complicated—and Octavio watched him from his perch on the ladder, waiting for him to answer expectantly. Finally, Taejoon managed to form his words, though he felt as if it were the wrong answer.

“Not really. Not without you.”

“I’m right here.”

“Yes, but—” Taejoon ran a hand through his hair, biting on the inside of his cheek as he struggled to form his thoughts into words. Nearly everything that constituted his ‘home’ was gone, and only Mystik and the orphanage remained. He had been stripped of his identity and his family, and had created a new ‘home’ for himself on Psamathe.

Well, that wasn’t true. He wasn’t attached to Psamathe, didn’t miss the planet, had hardly gotten to know it as he had spent most of his time at the Silva estate—and even that didn’t feel like home. More like a prison.

No, his new home was Octavio. The one person he had talked to for so long, the person reliably there when he’d needed him, not on a different planet and not someone missing entirely.

They’d gone through so much together that being apart made him feel some form of homesickness, worsened by the other’s cold attitude towards him. If Octavio wasn’t talking to him, he felt like he’d lost yet another important aspect of his life. Another person that he called home.

 _Home is where the heart is,_ or however that saying went.

“I love you,” Taejoon said out loud, unsure of how to voice any of that without sounding like a crazy person. It was something he felt prompted to say, spurred on by the memory of Octavio telling him the same thing right before everything had gone down.

He remembered that much, including the warm, giddy feeling those words had made him feel, but now they just made him feel melancholic.

Octavio’s leg stopped bouncing, and Taejoon realized now that that had been the absolute worst possible thing to say at this moment. He worried that maybe the other man would interpret those words as a form of guilt-tripping, but that hadn’t been his intention at _all._ Octavio drew his legs back up into the attic, and Taejoon felt despair as he watched him reach down to grip the ladder, but that feeling quickly faded as Octavio responded quietly,

“I love you too.”

He shut the hatch to the attic behind him, leaving Taejoon feeling confused and out of sorts.

* * *

The kids at the orphanage _loved_ Octavio.

They clung to him, showed him their multiplication tables excitedly, demonstrated to him how fast they could code this thing or how they planned to build that thing. He had never seen so many nerdy kids in one place, and suddenly Taejoon’s whole _self_ made more sense to him now.

To the orphans, Octavio was a new kid, and they all wanted to be his best friend—which he didn’t really know how to react to.

He had never really interacted with kids, either his age or younger. Most of the students at his private school had been stuffy and disciplined, not rowdy and exuberant like the kids at Ticacek Orphanage, and he just wasn't _used_ to it.

Whereas all of his ‘childhood friends’ had been people forced to hang out with him because their parents knew each other, the kids at the orphanage genuinely seemed to want to spend time with him. They asked if he would play with them, or talk to them, or if they could show him all of their cool skateboard tricks. It was nice, even if a little exhausting, overwhelming.

He spent much of his first week in the solitude of the attic and roof, battling with the strange amount of homesickness inside of him that he didn’t know the reason for. He had hated his home, so he didn’t know why he missed it so much, but he had the feeling that it had to do with the fact that Che was _still_ calling him, despite him being officially declared dead.

He’d watched his own vigil, first morning at the orphanage; while the others ate their pancakes he stared at his phone, seeing his father cry at a podium while Adele comforted him by his side. She had the audacity to look sad as well, even though he knew she couldn’t stand him—and he didn’t even feel his usual contempt as he watched her crocodile tears. He just felt...a _lot_ , and also _nothing_ , at the same time.

He felt numb, actually.

That feeling carried on for the rest of the week and well into the next as he struggled with adjusting to this new life at the orphanage—so crowded and _busy_ and full of life at all times, unlike his home, which had been large and empty.

This place reminded him of home somewhat—white wallpaper, beds, and uniforms for the children, but it was also filled with more color than he’d ever seen. Crayon drawings on the walls, colorful toy cars with flames patterned on the sides scattered across the floor, a tripping hazard that Octavio had become a victim of more than once.

One of the older girls dyed her hair pink, and everyone was in awe of her, and two other kids dyed their hair to follow her lead. Mystik had chided them, but not very seriously—not like his father would have done. Octavio had been in school not that long ago, and he knew that their crazy hair colors never would have flown there, but everything seemed _different_ here. He remembered his own desire to dye his hair, and had to restrain himself from joining the kids in doing theirs.

Though there were some good things here, one of the things he disliked most about this place was his new name.

Aside from the fact that _Reyes_ had been his mother’s maiden name, he had also spent several agonizing months coming up with his new name before he’d come out to his family and friends. He’d had to remind the maids and his father countless times to call him _Octavio,_ had to fight to let them change his name to that _legally_ —only to immediately have it replaced a measly four years later.

 _Ángelo_ got on his nerves for multiple reasons, but that was definitely the most annoying thing about it. It didn’t help that the kids kept calling him Ángelo, and it somehow felt like a more cruel form of deadnaming.

He could only imagine how Taejoon felt about being called Hyeon.

Octavio flinched at the sudden thought of his boyfriend, because everything about him was... _complicated_ , right now.

They had talked earlier in the week, briefly, and he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to _do_ about it. He didn’t want to be mad at Taejoon, didn’t want to ignore him—not when he felt so out of his element right now, but he couldn’t help the shudder that went through him every time he saw his boyfriend, and the memory of his fingers on his throat whenever he tried to sleep.

He had started to take refuge on the roof every time he woke up from nightmares, ice cold and shaking, and he had seen Taejoon outside more than once. That time when he had gone to sleep in the truck, and twice after when Taejoon had wandered outside, clearly looking for him, but not saying anything when seeing him on the roof. Just looked assured that he was there, and not gone yet, before going back inside.

It left Octavio feeling numb too.

He’d never been very good at emotions, and he didn’t know how to handle the fear that still overtook him every time Taejoon got too close, which was inevitable in this crowded orphanage. This, piled on top of the guilt he still felt from the explosion and the fact that he had lied to Taejoon by omission, left him avoiding the main building for as long as he could, until he was coaxed out by one of the kids who just _adored_ him, for some fucking reason.

July passed, and Octavio was spending much of his time at the orphanage now playing with the younger kids, or talking to the older ones, or being made to learn how to do basic chores.

He was all but officially assigned dishwashing duty, which he did not care for because wet food was _disgusting_ , but Mystik at least gave him ice cream whenever he did them—which just made him feel like he was five years old, but hey, ice cream was ice cream.

He was taught how to fold clothes, how to vacuum, how to clean bathtubs so that they were squeaky clean and white rather than yellow and moldy. It was dirty work, and he honestly hated it a lot, but doing chores usually meant that he could avoid Taejoon, who couldn’t help with much thanks to his arm. 

Though Octavio still felt some discomfort, he wasn’t necessarily...as _scared_ of him anymore. A lot of his avoidance stemmed from his own guilt and the fact that he didn’t know _how_ they could go back to normal after this. Was he just supposed to start talking to Taejoon like nothing had happened? Was he supposed to apologize? He wished he had been gifted with an instruction manual on how to deal with relationships, because this felt more difficult than it needed to be, even as time went on.

On this particular evening he found himself beside Taejoon as they ushered the kids inside the building, making sure they were dry, because they had just come back from the community pool.

He suddenly locked eyes with his boyfriend, who quickly looked away, as if he didn’t want to be caught staring. Jordan squeezed herself between them to wrap one of the youngest kids up in a towel, crying out that he was going to catch a cold, and Octavio pressed his back flat against the wall to allow the rest of the stragglers through the back door.

They were the only two left in the hallway now, the kids bustling up to the showers, and Octavio stared at the frayed cuffs of Taejoon’s jeans. The other man was supposed to go clothes shopping on Friday to get a new outfit because he had been wearing this one for the past several days, and Octavio was reminded of the last time he’d worn it; at the PC cafe, where they had printed out copies of Adele’s I.D. and played video games together. Simpler times.

He was so lost in thought that he stepped on something—yet another toy car—and tripped forward, his foot sliding out from beneath him. He was prepared to fall flat on his face and possibly break his nose, but a hand grabbed him by his forearm, and he was yanked into the familiar, solid body of Taejoon.

Octavio felt comforted, for the briefest of moments—memories of clinging to this man late at night, of being held tightly to his chest at the lowest points in his life, flooded him. The scar over his eye had yet to fade away, and it seemed to tingle as Taejoon placed his hand on Octavio’s waist in a gentle manner—but then the illusion was broken at the coldness of his fingers against Octavio’s bare skin, and he regretted, for the first time, wearing a crop-top.

He tore himself away from the man, heart quickening in his chest and mouth filling with cotton. Taejoon looked hurt, and Octavio _hated_ that expression on him, but he could do nothing to help it. The air between them was thick, so thick that it felt as though you could cut through it with a knife, before Octavio darted away from him like a coward and joined Mystik in helping to prepare dinner.

That was another thing he was being taught: how to cook.

Octavio hardly had any experience in cooking. He’d had a chef for his entire life, and the very few times he’d made food for himself it was something simple like cup ramen or a pizza in the oven. Even then, he’d burned quite a few pizzas because he often forgot to set a timer—but Mystik didn’t seem to care about that. She seemed intent on drilling as many recipes into his head as possible, and often didn’t care if he failed on his first attempt, which was something he was not yet used to.

(“I can just retake the test,” Octavio said, annoyed, as his father flipped out over the 76 on his algebra test, because _‘76 doesn’t get you into med school’._

“It doesn’t matter if you can,” his father had snapped at him, face red with anger, and he flinched away, afraid that he was about to get violent. “There are no _second chances_ when you run a business.”)

“I need you to cut these,” Mystik instructed him without a second glance, handing him washed scallions, which he stared at, not sure how she wanted them cut. In big chunks, or really fine? Vertical or horizontal? The world of cooking was foreign to Octavio, and he felt like a dumbass with a knife.

He started cutting as soon as Jordan entered the kitchen, and she laughed at him, the beads on her cornrows clinking together as she shook her head.

“Nah man, you’re doing that wrong. Let me help.”

Jordan was...fine. Reminded him a lot of Ajay before she’d gotten a stick up her ass, which was painful to think about, as she was still leaving voicemails in his inbox every day. He had yet to listen to the recent ones, but he wondered how they would have changed in tone after his vigil. Did she still believe him to be alive, or was she doing this as her own way to cope?

“Whatcha thinking about?” Jordan asked him, and he sliced his knife a little too roughly downward by accident.

“...People back at home,” he mumbled, tossing aside the bad bits. Though he wasn’t cutting as finely and evenly as Jordan, he felt like his slices were passable enough. “My best friend.”

“Oh, yikes.” Jordan hummed, and turned away from him so that she could crack eggs into a bowl at Mystik’s instruction. “Must be tough, huh? Everyone thinking you’re dead.”

“Yep.” He didn’t really know how to continue the conversation after that, but Jordan kept talking without his input.

“Man, when T...I mean, Hyeon died, Mystik was all over it. Kept lookin’ for him everywhere, kept blowing up his phone, reaching out to him with every means she knew.” She kept adding things to the bowl, things Octavio didn’t really recognize thanks to his limited knowledge of cooking.

Jordan continued, "They didn’t say they’d killed him—just said that they’d caught him, but she didn’t believe it. She thought they were lying. We all thought he got away.”

Octavio’s cutting slowed down as he tried to imagine it from Ajay’s perspective—before that footage had come out, she had obviously hoped that, best case scenario, he had set up that explosion as a joke and escaped with his life. His father had evidently thought the same, but he wondered how their opinions had changed after what Taejoon had done to him reached the news.

How would you theorize after that? That despite how the footage looked, he had managed to escape before the explosion? He tried to imagine the kind of hoops you would have to jump through to think that he was still alive, and the only theory that could work is if that woman had somehow taken him through her portal.

...And speaking of, wouldn’t Hammond have footage of that lady planting the bomb? Or, at least, just by having footage of her there in the room with them, wouldn’t she also be a suspect? Why weren’t they going after her? Why had they immediately placed the blame on his boyfriend?

He hadn’t told Taejoon about the woman yet, nor her mysterious words, and he wasn’t sure when the time to bring it up was.

Jordan suddenly placed her hand on his wrist, breaking him from his thoughts, and he jumped a little.

“You’ve cut enough,” she said, and took the cutting board, scraping half of the scallions into her bowl and setting the rest aside for something else. Mystik gave him more to do, and it managed to keep his mind off of the situation for a while.

Soon, they had finished preparing fried rice for everyone in the orphanage. Even though he had accidentally poured too much soy sauce into it, Mystik quickly forgave him, and started serving everyone large portions. 

Seeing the kids eat it without complaint made him feel...proud of himself. Accomplished, almost. Not quite the same rush as winning a race back home, but it made him smile a little nonetheless.

This sense of accomplishment increased when Taejoon tried a small bite from Jordan’s plate after she had offered it to him, and he nodded, murmuring something that made her laugh and point at Octavio, who quickly ducked to avoid being seen.

Since he had helped cook he didn't have to wash dishes tonight, but he went upstairs to raid Mystik’s fridge with Carter to have ice cream anyways. Carter was a nice guy, even if a little annoying with how much he liked math. Math wasn’t Octavio’s worst subject, but it definitely wasn’t his best either, and hearing the kid go on about linear equations and exponents made his brain hurt.

He managed to escape a rant about polynomials by claiming he had something to do upstairs in his room, and climbing up into the attic, his new temporary home.

Though Octavio was not very fond of cleaning, he had at least managed to make the space a little roomier since moving in. Mostly by shoving things as far into the corners as he could, which had led him to discover the panel in the roof that could be opened.

The cardboard box beneath it had several days’ worth of dirty footprints on top of it from how much he’d stepped on the box to help him reach the ceiling, and he climbed on top of it now, standing on his tiptoes to reach the panel. Cardboard box or not, he was still very short, and often had trouble reaching it.

He managed to climb onto the roof by himself, accidentally scuffing his knees in the process and adding to the multiple injuries all over his body—first the scar over his eye, then the bruises on his neck (currently a very ugly yellow), the nicks all over his jaw from when he’d shaved the other day, and now his bleeding knees.

He liked sitting on the roof and looking at the stars. There weren’t very many, but he’d hardly ever seen them back on Psamathe unless one was shining particularly bright in the sky that day. Here, there were smatterings of stars all over the sky, even in as populous an area as this, and he wondered what Che would think if she ever saw them. She’d always dreamed of seeing more stars.

And speaking of her...

His phone lit up with yet another phone call that went ignored. He had replaced the poppy track with something far more boring so that it wouldn’t mock him as much, but it seemed almost worse now as it played out. The call ended, and he had a new message in his inbox. 

Octavio swiped through his phone, finger hovering over the messages, wondering if he should play them. He hadn’t listened to any of the recent ones, the ones that had been sent after the footage had gotten released, too afraid to listen to that shift in tone from hopeful to devastated. 

He wondered what she would think of him now; as docile as he’s ever been, doing chores and cooking and staying cooped up inside an attic for most of the day. She never would have dreamed of it, and neither would he, but circumstances changed. Things... _happened_ , and now he was here.

He was supposed to be filming holovids right about now, taking the leap every day to perform as many adrenaline-inducing stunts as he wanted, but he didn’t want to risk Taejoon’s safety even further. Gaea was safe for him at the moment, as the authorities didn't want to reveal that the rogue robot was actually a _person_ with ties to Gaea, so the investigation was based primarily in Psamathe.

There was no doubt in Octavio's mind that if he was discovered alive, it would lead to many questions about what had happened, including his boyfriend’s whereabouts, before he was ultimately shipped back to Psamathe to live with his father again. An investigation would start on Gaea, focusing on the orphanage and his old neighborhood, and Taejoon would be forced to flee again.

No, he would wait just a little while more, let the smoke clear out, and then he would begin his new life as _Octane_ , a personality Che would probably disapprove of.

He stared at the icon of her face on his phone for so long that the screen went dim, and before he could stop himself, played the new message she had left.

“Another one of these...floodin’ your inbox until these start automatically gettin’ cycled out...because I can’t stop thinking about you,” Ajay said, voice sounding thick, as though she’d been crying, and god, this had been a mistake.

“Your stupid laugh and stupid _everything_ else. Silva, you gave me so many gray hairs, but I’d take looking like an old lady than you being six feet under, y’know?”

She let out a long breath, as if wondering what to say next. Octavio desperately hoped that she wasn’t about to cry, because he would probably start crying too. 

“I’m gonna join the Apex Games. Get fundin’ for the Frontier Corps. I know you would’ve called this _boring_ and say I’ve got a stick up my ass, but I’m tired of feeling like I can’t do anything right in this world.” Another pause. When she spoke next, her tone was lighter, as if she was trying hard to make herself feel better.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for not makin’ things right before you died. I’m sorry that the last thing I ever called you was a prissy jackass. Or it might’ve been a child. Either way, I’m sorry.”

Octavio laughed to himself a little, because neither of those things were correct. The last thing she’d called him was _‘complacent’,_ ranting to him that he wasn’t as rebellious as he thought he was if he wasn’t doing anything to shake up the privileged world they lived in, and it had resulted in him storming off.

Just like she regretted calling him names, he regretted leaving. Regretted not really getting to say goodbye to her before unwillingly faking his own death.

Ajay’s message ended, and Octavio didn’t think he could stomach another, so he stared at the stars for a little while longer before climbing down into the attic.

He sat on the rungs of the ladder as the evening news played, something he’d taken to doing recently even though he thought the news was boring. _Man, how times had changed_ —but he was mostly on the lookout for any more Hammond news. He kept waiting for them to bring up that mysterious lady who had disappeared, but the story had stalled once they’d declared Taejoon a suspect, and there were hardly any new updates.

Carter went to bed midway through, right after Jordan arrived to do something hacker-related with Mystik, which Octavio wouldn’t even _pretend_ to understand. Taejoon came with Jordan and sat on Mystik’s couch, arms crossed over his chest and his leg shaking as if he were bored.

It was so _weird_ to see his boyfriend acting this human around other people, whereas on Psamathe he had seemed so stiff and solid, robotic even after he had undone his programming. Restrained and afraid.

Octavio stared at Taejoon, taking in the sharp line of his jaw, the way his eyebrows seemed permanently furrowed nowadays. His lips were always drawn into a pout and there was a paleness to his cheeks that didn’t seem healthy. He bit his lower lip and looked back down at his phone, not wanting to be caught watching him, but what he heard next from the newscaster made his head jerk back up.

“Psamathean authorities have good enough reason to believe that the rogue has escaped the planet."

The woman reporting had a smooth, professional voice that did nothing to calm Octavio’s nerves.

“The Silva family car has been found half-destroyed near a well-known hangar, and it is believed that the rogue drove itself there and boarded a dropship intended for Gaea.”

“That’s right, here in Gaea,” her fellow said, adjusting his glasses and flashing her a look. “Gaean authorities will be on the lookout for any sightings of it, and encourage you all to do the same. If you believe you have information on its whereabouts, please call this number.”

A hotline flashed across the screen, and Taejoon buried his face into his hands, grabbing fistfuls of his hair in clear distress. Octavio’s blood had run cold as the news went on, and he knew, without a doubt, that this was _his_ fault. 

Why had he just trusted the Benz to a random stranger? He should have given clearer instructions— _destroy it completely, make it unrecognizable—anything_ that would have prevented it from getting discovered, prevented the authorities from figuring out that they were in Gaea.

 _Why_ had they even taken the Benz in the first place? Why couldn’t he have just gone with their original plan, of taking the train and then a bus? 

Why did he have to ruin _everything?_

Octavio watched his boyfriend despair in silence, a sickening sense of guilt digging its roots even deeper into him as he bit down on his nails, an unfortunate habit he had picked up on the dropship. Mystik and Jordan began talking in low voices, but all he could focus on was the fact that his boyfriend was, once again, in danger—and it was Octavio’s doing.

He slowly slid down the ladder, tentative and afraid.

Afraid that Mystik, who had so far been forgiving of his mistakes, would lash out at him like his father. Afraid that Taejoon would realize that it was Octavio’s fault a target was being painted on his back and Octavio’s fault that his home planet was unsafe for him. Afraid that Jordan would realize that he was a horrible selfish person and stop being so nice to him.

He approached Taejoon, trying to think of what to say, but nothing came to mind. The other man just kept running his hands through his hair, a nervous tic, and Octavio felt worse for the harsh way his metal fingers were digging into his scalp. 

He reached out to touch the man gently on his shoulder, and Taejoon looked up at him slowly, teary-eyed with frustration. Octavio remembered how hard it had been to apologize to Taejoon when he’d gotten angry at him for what he had said, and he found it even harder to apologize for his own direct actions, as well as the consequences of them.

“I’m sorry,” Octavio managed to get out, voice barely above a whisper, because in addition to the hoarseness of it, he sounded as if he were about to cry, which was embarrassing.

Taejoon just stared up at him, looking as though he were chewing on the inside of his cheek, before he turned his head away, which made Octavio feel a hundred times worse.

Then, his boyfriend placed his hand over Octavio’s—the one that didn’t quite work—and he flinched. He wanted to jerk his hand away, and his heart was beating rapidly in his chest, but he managed to stay there with his hand on his boyfriend’s shoulder.

 _I'm sorry_ wasn't enough, he knew, but he didn't know how to put it into words. He didn't think he _could._

Octavio bent down, only able to do this because of the set-up of their situation—the other man was sitting down and in distress, while he was standing above him near several points of exit—and kissed his boyfriend on his cheek, something he hadn’t done in quite a while, even before everything had happened. Another attempt at an apology, because he just didn't know what to say.

Taejoon turned his head a little, eyes wide in surprise, but Octavio left the room quickly before anything else could happen, far too out of his comfort zone now.

He collapsed onto the bed he had been given, a squeaky, lumpy thing, and buried his face into his pillow. 

He wished that he could cling to Taejoon again, wrap his limbs around him like a starfish and just feel comforted by his solid presence, but he couldn’t, and it was his own damn fault. His fault they were in this mess, and his fault that now, Gaea wasn’t safe for Taejoon either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was listening to "TO THE BEAT" off of ateez's new album on repeat while writing this and let me tell u its hard to be emotional when u got funky fresh music playing
> 
> also i forgot to mention this when i first wrote about the outfit but i have no creativity and taejoon's new outfit is [just 180514 namjoon](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1b/e2/eb/1be2ebc796bbc40ca4bca2f0b72e9c4e.jpg)
> 
> i rlyyyy wanna finish this up next chapter but i SUCK at endings man so im gonna work as best i can to give this story a proper ending cuz most of my other endings r WACK love u guys <3


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _So please  
>  Tell me it's alright  
> In this anxious mist (alright)  
> It's all in a moment  
> So please  
> If this is my way  
> Hold my hand  
> [So I don't wander for long](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCjfC0lTSmk)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws for this chapter:  
> past child abuse  
> domestic violence/fear of  
> minor dysphoria / a dysphoria-inducing event  
> and lots of Emotions and relationship stuff

Octavio used to hang out with the kids behind the building, watching them play hacky-sack; or race drones; or do a round of some verbal math game that left his head spinning. He hadn't gone out very much, but when he had they liked to drag him to the best walls to throw bouncy-balls at, or to the shadiest parts of the street to cool off in when the sun was hot.

Now, he bitterly observed them from Mystik’s apartment window, longing to join them once again. He hadn't gone out much to begin with, but he certainly wasn't allowed out now, and he could only blame himself for his own imprisonment.

Imprisonment. That was what this felt like. 

Sure, life at his father’s had been stifling, suffocating, but he had at least been allowed out—and whenever he was _not_ allowed out, there was no greater consequence than a simple grounding if he _did_ leave. 

That was not the case here. Taejoon’s life was in danger once again, and it could all be traced back to Octavio lying to him. He hadn’t spoken to the other man in several days, locking himself up in the attic again and purposely avoiding his eyes out of shame—something Che used to say he didn’t have, and he wished it were true. He hated the feeling of it.

He had come close to telling Taejoon _everything_ the day after the news had broken. Biting on his index nail so hard that it bled, crouched near the partially-opened hatch as he eavesdropped on Mystik comforting Taejoon, voice gentle but firm as she told him that under no circumstances were they to leave. Not until she figured out where else to put them.

He could tell that Taejoon was still beating himself up over how much he had hurt Octavio, still shocked by the revelation from the news, and so he nearly blurted out the truth then— _it’s my fault, my father knew, I should’ve made Omela let you stay with me, and I didn’t properly dispose of the car_ —but he held back. There was a constant, paranoid feeling inside of him that said if he told Taejoon the truth, he would become angry, and he would hit Octavio—or worse, choke him again.

He knew, realistically, that Taejoon would probably _(hopefully)_ never hit him, but it was a fear that wouldn’t go away, and he held back because of it. He wasn’t even sure what Mystik would do to him, but he was afraid of her too. She seemed like she would have no hang-ups about hitting Octavio round the head, especially after she had stressed the importance of their plan so many times.

So Octavio had shut the hatch that night, and returned to his bed, where he spent the whole day after drifting in and out of sleep.

Carter occasionally climbed up into the attic to ask if he wanted ice cream, and he usually ate dinner with everyone, but aside from that, nobody saw much of him from then on. He was getting bored and antsy by himself, but felt as though everyone could see right through him whenever he was around them, picking up on his lies and anxieties and doubts. He isolated himself from them because of it and tried his best to keep himself entertained, but it was starting to drive him up the wall, being cooped up for so long.

He had brought his gaming system with him, but kept forgetting to set it up. He was only reminded of its existence after he had nearly dropped a heavy briefcase on top of it while trying to rearrange the attic into something more interesting, and was glad for the sudden distraction that it represented.

Octavio managed to hook it up to a cracked and dusty TV inside the attic that looked like a rock had been thrown at it. A large, circular dent was in the corner and several impact lines around it distorted the picture it was displaying, but he got used to it after a few days. The most annoying thing about it was the thin purple lines that showed up in dark areas of the screen, but he could live with them if it meant avoiding everyone else.

("Reyes," Mystik called from downstairs, and he bit so hard on his bottom lip that it began to bleed. He hated being called that. "Dinner."

He was on a very difficult level, and didn't feel like stopping if it meant that he was going to be placed under the scrutiny of everyone else. He ignored her for now, and decided that he would go downstairs to grab a plate when he felt like it.

What felt like only a couple of minutes later, Carter was pushing through the hatch with the top of his head, asking, "Do you want ice cream?"

"Shouldn't you eat dinner first?" Octavio asked, arching an eyebrow. Normally he would've said _Hell yeah, dessert before dinner,_ but he didn't feel like going downstairs just yet. He was safe inside this little bubble, away from being called _Ángelo_ and away from having to look at Taejoon and feel that suffocating shame.

Carter stared at him.

"Dinner's over."

Octavio blinked, and then checked the time on his phone. An hour and a half had passed, and he hadn't even noticed.

That was how most days went.)

Two weeks after the news, the hatch opened up in the middle of Octavio mindlessly playing, and his eyes instantly honed in on the light beaming in from Mystik’s apartment. He expected it to be Carter again, who was either too young to pick up on when people wanted to be left alone or just didn't care.

He instead saw the top of a spiky black head, and the next thing he knew he was scrambling back a little on his lumpy bed as Taejoon climbed inside, glancing around at the Christmas lights strung above.

His boyfriend froze, staring at him, and then at the TV. Several seconds of silence passed as he looked between them before he asked, “Is that _my_ TV?”

Genuinely unsure, he echoed, "Is it?”

“Looks like it.” Taejoon straightened up, kicking the hatch shut, the warm light from Mystik's apartment disappearing. It left Octavio feeling cornered, but he tried not to show it. “...Aside from the fact that it is broken.”

Not wanting the other to think that he had broken one of his things, Octavio rushed out, “It was already like that by the time I hooked it up. I didn’t do it.”

“I know.” Taejoon stuck his hands into his pockets, looking a little awkward in his jeans and hoodie. Jordan had gone out to buy him clothes on her own, and several of his things had ended up being either too big or too small for him. The over-sized hoodie he currently had on displayed a little cartoon frog sitting beneath a giant lilypad umbrella. It was cute. Octavio kind of wanted to steal it from him and wear it himself, but he didn’t voice this out loud.

Realizing that he had been staring, Octavio fixed his gaze at some point over Taejoon’s shoulder, still not able to meet his eyes yet, and asked, “What are you doing here?”

“Ah, Mystik told me my stuff was up here a while ago.” Taejoon crossed his arms, covering the frog. "I've waited a while, so I finally decided to come and see what's left."

Guilt rose into his throat like bile, the thought that his boyfriend had put off getting his things back because he hadn't wanted to intrude in Octavio’s space. Several thoughts raced through his mind, foot shaking uncontrollably from his own uneasiness as he tried to figure out what to do. Leave the attic so that Taejoon could look through his things? Or join the other man and see the remnants of his past?

Octavio had always been curious about Taejoon.

The way his body worked, the way he felt, the feelings he had towards Octavio and the way he responded to the things he did—but that was all about the current Taejoon. Sure, the other man had told him about how he grew up and how he came to look like this, but his past life seemed like a great mystery to Octavio. Like something you learned in history books, an event you _know_ happened, but seemed too far off to properly imagine.

That was how Taejoon’s old life felt to Octavio, even in the orphanage, so after several long moments of debate he slowly rose to his feet and approached Taejoon. His boyfriend took a few steps back, away from the hatch, as if he expected Octavio to leave, but instead he asked,

“Where is it?”

He didn’t miss the surprise in Taejoon’s voice as he answered, “They should be in boxes with the number nine on it.”

A dozen questions popped into Octavio’s head, but he decided to ask none of them. He vaguely remembered shoving a few boxes with things written on them into the north corner of the attic, so he climbed over his lumpy bed to the area he had put them in.

None of them were Taejoon’s—two were unmarked, and the other two were simply labeled _‘ATTIC’_. Climbing back over his bed, he paused and watched Taejoon pick up things and set them aside, trying his hardest not to knock over a precariously swaying stack of books.

Octavio didn’t think he’d ever get used to the other man acting so...normal. Sure, Taejoon had acted more humanly in the privacy of Octavio’s room, but that was a limited space, and even then he’d seemed more muted, as if afraid to be caught at any moment. Octavio didn’t know if it was because the man was back home in a familiar environment, or if that hard-drive really had changed things, or what.

All he knew was that the man acted almost nothing like he had previously, which wasn't a negative thing despite how it sounded.

It was also slightly unsettling to see him so casual, in a hoodie too big and and a pair of jeans with holes in the knees. He had gotten used to seeing him in that godforsaken suit, and seeing him in different outfits every day almost felt like seeing a whole new person.

(Octavio himself had worn the same _Linkin Park_ shirt three days in a row, to the point that it was past irony.)

He was torn away from his thoughts by Taejoon’s elbow knocking against an old keyboard, and it crashed to the ground, several of its keys breaking off and scattering. A loud thumping came from downstairs, as if someone was hitting against the ceiling with a broom.

“Everything okay?” Jordan’s voice called.

“It was an accident,” Taejoon called back. He looked back at Octavio, who had jumped back onto the bed at the sudden noise, hackles raised. “...Sorry. I’ll clean it up.”

“I don’t care,” Octavio said, trying to act as though a keyboard hadn't just freaked him out. “That wasn’t yours, was it?”

“No, but I did play it.”

“You played the keyboard?”

“Piano, but occasionally, yes. It was actually Mila’s.”

Taejoon’s face pinched as he said his sister’s name, and he turned away from Octavio, still trying to find his stuff. The brief conversation they’d just had left Octavio’s head feeling fuzzy, numb to all feeling, and it was almost like everything was back to normal. That they were the way they had been before Hammond, before the explosion, before Taejoon’s fingers had wrapped around his neck and before he’d abandoned the car.

It was startling how even a couple of exchanged words could make an earth-shattering difference to someone who had purposely cut themselves off from everyone else; Octavio found himself sliding off the bed and approaching Taejoon, managing to catch several books after his boyfriend accidentally bumped into a stack of them. 

A few still hit the ground with a thud, but it wasn’t as loud as it would have been had Octavio not been there to grab a few. He looked up to meet Taejoon’s eyes for the first time since that night, and he could see the surprise in them, the way his mouth turned down at the corners like he was trying not to say anything.

They kept at that for a moment, eyes locked and bodies still, Octavio half bent over with the weight of at least three encyclopedias and Taejoon’s hands still held out from his previous attempt at re-steadying the books. Then the moment passed, and Octavio’s eyes zeroed in on two boxes in the corner, marked with a clear _‘0009’_.

“Found your stuff,” he said, and Taejoon followed his gaze, before carefully stepping over long-discarded toys and rolled up rugs to get to them. The other man examined the boxes, stacked on top of each other, before he bent down and picked them up with ease. However, regardless of how strong Taejoon was, he couldn’t carry the boxes over without accidentally knocking down more stuff, so he set them right back down before asking Octavio,

“Can you help me?”

He nodded silently, and Taejoon picked up the top box, scooting over a little so that he could hold it out for Octavio to take. He held the box carefully in his arms, grunting a little from how heavy it was, before stumbling backwards and managing to set (more like drop) it down. Taejoon carried the second box over, giving it a look, mouth once again turned down into a pout.

Octavio took a few steps away from him and sat at the edge of his bed, leg bouncing with energy as he stared at both boxes curiously. To his knowledge, Taejoon’s apartment had gotten wrecked when he’d first died, so he wondered what had been salvaged from it. Wondered what type of stuff Taejoon had had in his apartment in the first place, and who he had once been.

Taejoon looked from the box in his hands to the hatch on the floor, as if debating how he could get it down without dropping it. He shifted it to his hip and started to bend over, his bad hand stretched out, but Octavio said,

“You can stay here.”

His curiosity had won over his hesitance, and Taejoon stared at him again. It was starting to get too awkward, these long moments of silence where they just looked at one another, as if unsure what to do. The other opened his mouth and then snapped it shut, before running his fingers through his hair, letting out a quick puff of breath, as if unsure if he should really stay.

Finally, after what seemed like an age and a half, Taejoon set the marked box down, and murmured, “Let me go get a boxcutter.”

“Nah,” Octavio said, and laid down on his back so that he could stretch his hand over to the bench he was using as a bedside table. He’d discovered a pair of scissors while looking for a clean shirt, and he kept them at his side in case he ever needed them, should Gaean authorities storm the orphanage or should Taejoon ever—

He shut his eyes, biting hard on his tongue, before passing the scissors over to Taejoon, who took it from Octavio hesitantly. He grabbed the very tip of the scissors, the pointed end, as if he were trying his best not to accidentally touch Octavio, before sitting down on the floor and pulling one of the boxes closer to him.

Octavio debated sitting next to him, but decided to just sit from the bed and watch, eyes focused on Taejoon’s fingers as he cut the tape off. The box was very dusty, and Octavio was reminded of the fact that it had been a year and a half since Taejoon had ‘died’. 

(Or something like that. Taejoon had been ‘dead’ for eight months until he arrived at the mansion, and then there was the time they spent together, so...ugh, he hated math.)

“Ah,” his boyfriend suddenly said, and he sounded embarrassed. “I can’t believe she kept all this.”

“What is it?” Octavio asked, jumping at the opportunity to make fun of the other.

“My old albums.” Taejoon held up a pink album, the cover art being what must have been about a dozen girls with the words _Fancy You_ printed on top. “...And photocards.”

“Oh my god. You nerd.”

“There’s so many...”

He pulled out another album, this one being of a girl in a large red bow eating a strawberry. The third album was something Octavio actually recognized.

“Dude, seriously? _SHINee?_ ”

“Shut up. Life was simpler back then.” Taejoon had a smile on his face as he stared at the album, though his eyes were glazed. Octavio realized he was smiling too, but the sudden silence left him feeling unsure and confused. 

The back-and-forth came so _easily_ , even though it really shouldn’t. Even though there was a lot weighing in the air between them, unsaid words and fears that seemed solid, tangible. He was probably sending Taejoon a lot of mixed signals, and he honestly didn’t even know how he would put everything into words.

 _I miss you,_ he would start off with, and then he wouldn’t know how to finish. _I miss you, but..._

_But I screwed up._

_But I’m scared._

_But you won’t be able to forgive me._

“I guess this is all the stuff they didn’t think was important enough to take away,” Taejoon mumbled, and began leafing through a sketchbook with yellowed pages. Octavio couldn’t quite tell from here, but it looked mostly like geometric lines, though there was the occasional humanoid figure. 

“Can I see that?” He asked, his curiosity coming back at full force, and Taejoon slid it over to him. Looking at it closely now, he realized that it wasn’t just random shapes, but machinery and architecture. The inside of a car, or the skeleton of a building, all rough, blocky shapes. Even the people he had drawn seemed sharp and angular, humanoid but not actually human. 

The bitter taste of irony filled his mouth as he came to this realization, and he slammed the sketchbook shut, which made the other man look up from the box, eyebrows furrowed.

“I didn’t know you could draw,” Octavio said before Taejoon could ask him anything, and he watched the man’s cheeks start to tint red as he rubbed at the back of his neck, clearly embarrassed.

“Not well,” he admitted.

“Well, I like them.”

“I’m glad you do.”

Now the conversation was stilted, awkward and unsure, and Octavio didn’t know where to pick it up from there. He kept watching Taejoon go through his things, more albums and books and a little stuffed cat that he had tried hiding behind his back before Octavio could see it. This failed, of course, and Octavio teased him for it, though his heart wasn’t in it.

Taejoon finished going through the boxes, and put everything back inside neatly, his movements slow and meaningful. He seemed lost in thought once again, chewing on the inside of his cheek, but he remained silent, so Octavio picked up his discarded game controller and continued his abandoned game.

“Octavio,” his boyfriend spoke up after a while, and he glanced over to see him getting to his feet with quick, sudden movements. Instinct took over him and he instantly dropped his controller, scrambling to get away from him further up on the springy bed.

He met Taejoon’s wide eyes, his boyfriend clearly startled. His heart thudded in his chest as he took in the way the other had folded his arms, the amount of self-loathing in his eyes palpable because of Octavio's reaction.

“I’m sorry,” Taejoon said, sounding disheartened. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He cleared the blockage in his throat, and managed to get out, “It’s fine.”

“I just...” Taejoon looked down at his feet, shuffling back and forth in a nervous manner that was making Octavio a little bit anxious too. He sat up straighter on the bed, body tensed like a coil and ready to spring into action—which he knew was an unreasonable response to the other man just standing there, but he couldn’t help it. He was on edge.

“What are we?” 

Octavio stared at the other man, trying to find his words. His mouth gaped open, and he blurted out, “What do you mean?”

“What are we, Octavio?” Taejoon repeated, starting to look upset. “Did we break up?”

He didn’t know how to word his answer. He didn’t even know if there _was_ an answer, because it felt like their relationship was in limbo at the moment. Not progressing, but not disappearing, either. He still referred to Taejoon as his boyfriend in his mind, and his heart still sped up whenever he was touched by him in that careful manner of his—but they hadn't talked to one another in a while, and he still woke up from frequent nightmares about the other. He didn’t even know if Taejoon still loved him, or if that had disappeared after the weeks of silence and evasion.

So he said honestly, “I don’t know.”

“Why are you still here, then?”

The words came like a blow to him. Every single doubt he’d felt in the past month, every single regret that bubbled to the surface every time he listened to Ajay’s voice break over voicemails—it all churned in his stomach, and he felt actually, physically ill.

Why _was_ he still here? He’d caused nothing but trouble since he’d gotten here, and it was his own fucking fault that all of this had happened in the first place.

He’d been impatient, hadn’t told Taejoon and Mystik what he knew, stole a car which then proceeded to be the sole reason the authorities figured out that they were on Gaea. He actively avoided Taejoon, and everyone must’ve noticed by now. Did they hate him for it? Why wouldn't they? Taejoon was their family, and Octavio was the stranger that had come into their lives and started ruining everything. Were they waiting for him to leave? Why _was_ he here? Why hadn't he left yet?

( _Because you're a coward._

_Because you have nowhere else to go._

_Because you're selfish._

_Because you weren't fast enough._ )

“I don’t know,” he repeated, voice breaking in the middle, and Taejoon’s expression got worse.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said regretfully. “I want you here, Octavio, it’s just—you act like you don’t want to be here. You don’t _have_ to stay. This is _my_ problem, and I’ve dragged you into this. I’ve taken you away from your home, and I hurt you.”

“But I want to stay with you,” Octavio said, and god, his voice was getting scratchy and his eyes were getting wet. He went to bite on his thumbnail, but decided against it, instead just wiping at his running nose with the back of his hand. 

“Do you?” Taejoon sounded doubtful, and it fucking _hurt._

“I do.”

“You don’t even want to look at me.” Taejoon looked down at his right hand, fingers flexing slowly. “You can’t stand me touching you.”

Something inside of him broke. His boyfriend’s expression and voice and his _everything_ was making him feel so much guilt and regret that it was physically painful. He didn’t know how to deal with either of those emotions, but they burned inside of him, white-hot and electrifying, as he burst out,

“Because this is _my_ fault! It’s my fault those assholes know you’re here, because I fucked up! I _fucked up,_ Taejoon.”

Everything came spilling out of him. He was nervous, anxious, and he wasn’t even sure if he was saying half of it in English, but it all came out nonetheless.

Every single word he spoke just made the fear inside of him mount, half-convinced that Taejoon would realize just how badly he had screwed him over and get _mad_ at him, but he just kept going. It had been eating him up from the inside, and maybe now they would finally kick him to the curb instead of letting him continue to make everyone else miserable.

He was crying and it was fucking humiliating. Every admission of guilt just brought forth another hiccup and another stream of tears, and by the time he got to the part about _I just fucking gave the car to some random guy on the street and now they know you’re here which means it’s my fault that you can’t even call your home safe anymore,_ he was out of breath, chest heaving in a way he hadn't experienced before.

It all felt like a culmination of the past month. His exhaustion and sleepless nights, his nightmares and Ajay’s remorse-stricken voicemails, his boyfriend’s guilt and his homesickness—all of it piled up, and he couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t breathe, and the faded bruises on his neck stung.

He wasn’t even looking at Taejoon, afraid to see the other’s face once he realized that it was Octavio’s fault that everything was being taken from him once again, and by the time he ran out of things to say, he was hiccuping frequently, chest hurting. He hadn't ever meant to tell Taejoon everything, but it was all getting to be _too much._ He was overwhelmed.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Taejoon approach him, and he flinched, prepared for the worst—the memory of his father slapping him across his face when he’d found out that Octavio had back-talked his stepmother flashed through his mind—when his boyfriend quietly asked,

“Can I touch you?”

Octavio couldn’t find his voice, still crying and hiccuping and _afraid_ as he tried to hide his face from the other man’s view, but he nodded minutely, unsure if he would pick up on it. The next thing he knew, Taejoon was hugging him close to his chest, left hand placed on his waist and the other cradling the back of his head.

Octavio was disoriented; he didn’t know how to react, how he _should_ react, if he should be scared or relieved or upset or grateful. His body stiffened up at Taejoon’s touch, and the bruises on his neck _hurt_ , but the pain was somewhat alleviated by the memory of every single time Taejoon had held him like this. He felt solid and warm, a comforting combination.

His sniffling slowed, though his hiccups remained, embarrassing little _hups_ that he couldn’t help and he half-expected Taejoon to make fun of him for them, but the other man didn’t say anything for quite a while. Octavio’s face heated up as this contact continued, unsure if he was supposed to return the hug or break away. 

None of his parents had ever been very affectionate, unless you counted one of his father’s girlfriends who kept kissing him on the cheek as a child, and none of his friends had been like that, either. Sure, they had hugged, but not like this, and Taejoon had been the first person he’d ever been so intimate with—and even then, not quite like this. He didn't know how to deal with this. 

“I don’t care about any of that,” Taejoon finally murmured against the top of his head, and his fingers curled into his thigh, nails digging in. “I’m just glad that we’re both alive.”

“But-”

“That’s in the past now.”

“You don’t-?”

“I’m upset,” Taejoon said, and Octavio’s breath hitched at those words. “I’m upset that you’ve kept this to yourself. None of it matters. We were going to get found out anyway, no matter whether we took the car or the bus.”

Taejoon’s right hand moved itself away from Octavio’s head and instead cupped his face, something he hadn’t done in a long time, and _fuck_ , Octavio had forgotten how much he’d liked it. Even though his face must be red and snotty right now, Taejoon still met his eyes steadily, and he found himself unable to look away.

“You bought us time. Especially considering the circumstances, it would have been suspicious if you carried me onto any sort of public transport. We would’ve missed the flight and gotten caught.”

Octavio's voice was a broken mess. “I should have-”

“And it doesn’t matter that your father knew. They already knew that I was your bodyguard, and would have assumed that I was coming with you as well.”

“When Omela-”

“Octavio,” Taejoon cut him off, firmly, and he snapped his mouth shut, mind reeling. “I don’t care. I love you.”

He felt dumbfounded and disconcerted; he didn’t know how he was supposed to respond to that, why Taejoon was forgiving him so _easily_ when he was the sole reason that Gaea was no longer safe for him. He opened his mouth to express this, but his boyfriend shook his head, as if knowing what he was going to ask, and said,

“None of it is your fault. _They_ did this to me. Not you.”

Taejoon swiped his thumb under Octavio’s eye, wiping away his tears, and he tried very hard not to focus on the cool metal against his cheek. Tried not to think about the things it reminded him of, because he didn’t _want_ to think about them. All he wanted to do was keep staring at Taejoon, afraid to look away for even a second, afraid that their bubble would burst and he would feel the aftershocks of that day once again.

He leaned into Taejoon’s touch, trying to swallow down his hiccups with little success. He slowly raised his arms, unsteady and unsure, before taking the leap and wrapping them around his boyfriend. He buried his face into the crook of his neck and took several shuddering breaths that didn’t quite feel like enough, and Taejoon responded by rubbing circles into his back, which made him feel so _small._

At this point, he was crying just to cry. Octavio hardly ever cried, mostly because he didn’t want to let the people who had hurt him see his tears—but now it felt good to just let it out, like a weight was being taken off of his shoulders. The last time he had cried like this was with Ajay several years ago, for reasons that he couldn’t even remember, and back then she had merely pat him on the shoulder as he sobbed into his knees. She had never been too physically affectionate, either.

But Taejoon was different. Taejoon made him feel safe, like he could cry for hours and it would be okay. And _safe_ was a strange word to use after months of avoidance and unease, of nightmares and cold fingers, but it was true. He felt safe; more importantly, he felt glad that Taejoon wasn’t angry with him. That he didn’t blame him.

Octavio eventually pulled away, reaching over and picking up a discarded shirt before rubbing his eyes and nose with it. Taejoon gave him a very brief look of disgust, but it soon passed, and he placed his hands on his thighs, as if unsure of what to do with them now.

"I'm sorry," Octavio said, and his throat hurt, but he had to say it out loud.

"I forgive you."

Those were the words he had needed to hear. The weight was lifted off his chest for good, and his head felt clearer. Inhaling deeply, he tried to catch up on the breath he had lost, now unsure of where to take the conversation after all that. Thankfully, Taejoon spoke up first.

“What are we, Octavio?” He asked gently, and left the question hanging in the air, as if he was going to be fine with any answer. It was not a loaded question, and Octavio appreciated that. 

He rubbed at his swollen eyes, feeling gross from all that crying he’d just done. He already had his answer, but he didn’t want to respond too quickly, afraid of looking desperate.

“I love you,” he eventually said, before sniffling. “And I still want to date you.”

Taejoon nodded, lips quirked up a little at the corners, as if he was trying not to laugh.

"Okay.”

Octavio glared at him because of the expression he had on, vision a little blurry, and asked, “What do _you_ want to do?”

“I don’t think you’re ready for that yet,” his boyfriend said honestly.

“We’ve been through a lot, Tae. I can handle it.”

Taejoon pursed his lips, looking unsure, before he started rubbing at the back of his neck, yet another nervous habit. Octavio was getting very good at picking up on them now that his boyfriend could move freely.

After waiting for so long that his leg had started bouncing again, Taejoon finally admitted, “I want to get married.”

Octavio felt his brain short-circuit.

_What._

“What,” he said out loud.

Taejoon’s cheeks were now pink as he stared down at his shoes. “I said you weren’t ready.”

“But... _why_?” _Why would you want to marry_ me? _Why does anyone want to get married? You know marriage is one step away from a divorce, right? I just cried into your brand new froggy hoodie and you want to_ marry _me?_

“Like you said, we’ve been through a lot,” Taejoon said, and gave a half-smile, though it wasn’t a very happy one. It seemed almost sardonic. “And it’s not like we could get really, legally married. But I love you, and I want to stay with you. And I want you to feel like you can _tell me_ things. That you can _talk_ to me."

Octavio bit on his lower lip to prevent himself from arguing. Despite his...hang-ups and misgivings about marriage, he could appreciate the sentiment behind it. They had been through a lot, that was true, and though he could only speak for himself, still felt as though he was in love with Taejoon despite the past month. Through all of the hesitance and paranoia and silence, he still wanted to touch him, and be held by him, and talk to him and kiss him and do all of that normal couple stuff. 

Sure, Taejoon was a fugitive now, and he was technically dead, so _normal_ could never be a part of them, but...

He didn’t think he could handle marriage. Even if they couldn’t legally do it for obvious reasons, the mere idea of it felt daunting. His father’s marriages had never lasted more than three years at a time, and he was terrified of the thought that that could be he and Taejoon one day. It was painful enough being together and going through everything they'd just done—marriage seemed like yet another stressor on their already strained relationship.

He had apparently stayed silent for far too long, because Taejoon said quickly,

“I don’t mean right now. But at some point, if you’re okay with it.”

Taejoon reached his hand out, the Christmas lights glinting off of the metal of his fingers, and Octavio instinctively jerked his knee away from him. Taejoon let his hand drop, his expression now one of disappointment, and he immediately felt guilty for his reaction. 

After a brief moment of hesitation, he reached his own hand out, grabbing Taejoon’s right one and intertwining their fingers, ignoring the way his heart was starting to beat frantically in his chest. He wasn’t quite over everything yet, but he felt like they had at least put a Band-Aid on the open wound for now. It was better than nothing, and he at least had Taejoon's forgiveness.

“Ask me again later,” Octavio told him, and Taejoon smiled at that. He didn’t know if his answer was going to change, but he didn’t want to tell the other man _no_ right now. Not after everything that had just happened. 

Maybe he would think about it. For now, they had a billion other things to work through.

* * *

There was a haze weighing down on Taejoon, fogging up his mind and making him feel dizzy and numb. Numb was really all he felt nowadays, but it seemed especially concentrated these past few weeks.

He and Mystik had talked it over, and came to the conclusion that _they_ wouldn’t investigate the orphanage—not yet, anyways. Hammond was still operating like he was a random, soulless machine, and were informing the authorities of the same. A great amount of suspicion would be placed on them if they had specific places to investigate without probable cause, so for now the search was narrowed down to ‘Gaea’ and that was it.

Taejoon wondered if they had questioned the crew of the dropship yet. Surely they would have to mention Octavio, right? Or the fact that he had been brought onboard by a young man who fit Octavio’s description, and left with him...or maybe they wouldn’t. 

Hammond had purposely cut the footage so that it seemed as if Octavio had died, and if they questioned the crew members, some of them would realize that that wasn’t the case, and it would raise several alarms. He imagined that even now the crew members were panicking, realizing that they had had a murderous robot on their ship, and someone was bound to put two and two together.

Hammond and the Syndicate seemed desperate to cover up their tracks with him; to the point that one night on the news they aired photos of several robots that looked _exactly_ like him, and claimed that he had been a prototype, designed to look more human _‘for the comfort of our consumers’._

Taejoon understood the move—surely people would have noticed that the thing they were claiming to be a robot looked very much like a human, and was built drastically different from MRVNs. There was already enough distrust after the incident—why let even more brew?

Still though, it was very weird to see his own face staring back at him, looking eerily like his, but veering right into uncanny valley with how nonhuman it still was.

Because of all of this, he was sure that they wouldn’t come looking for him at the orphanage. Not yet, anyways—but they had to be careful, so he was confined inside until this all blew over, if it would ever. He still felt agitation at the loss of his identity and home, all of the grief they had caused him, but he knew that laying low was the smart choice.

He passed the tiny stuffed cat between his hands, a present from the mother he'd never met. He'd been abandoned as a newborn in front of the office of his social worker with nothing but this stuffed cat and a note asking that his name be Taejoon Park. It was one of the few things he had left from his mother, his own name, and every time he was faced with _Hyeon Kim_ it just felt like an insult to her bitter memory.

At least one thing made this all the more bearable, and it was the fact that Octavio was talking to him again.

Taejoon hadn’t necessarily been _alone_ this past month—it was hard to be in an orphanage with a dozen kids eager to prove to him that they were just as good, if not better, than he had been—but he still felt lonely. Octavio refusing to meet his eyes and keeping to himself in the attic was a constant reminder of what Taejoon had done to him. He had thought that there had been _progress_ between them, but after the news about the authorities on Gaea had broken, Octavio had practically disappeared, hardly ever coming down.

He knew why now, but the fact that Octavio had avoided him for so long out of fear that he would lash out at the other hurt. He knew that he had valid reasons to fear that sort of response, what with the childhood he had and the faded bruises on his neck, but it still left Taejoon feeling upset.

But that was all water under the bridge; what mattered was that Octavio was talking to him and touching him, and he was glad for it.

(“I made dinner,” Octavio said proudly, spreading his arms wide to show the slightly burnt pasta he’d prepared under Mystik’s instruction. “You’re gonna try it, right?”

“Of course,” Taejoon said, even though he wasn’t too fond of eating. He liked the taste and everything, but he didn’t know what happened to the food after he swallowed it, and he had the very unfortunate feeling that he would find out one day. Still though, he picked up a fork and tried some, and Octavio’s face lit up, which made it worth it.)

It almost felt like things were back to normal, despite the fact that everyone thought Octavio was dead, and the fact that blurry screenshots of him choking the other were plastered on billboards, warning the public of his existence. They were talking now, and sometimes did more, but it was very situational, and it all depended on Octavio.

Taejoon hardly ever initiated contact with him nowadays, not unless he was helping him with something, because he still noticed the way his boyfriend eyed his hands, hesitant, or visibly flinched away from him before smiling awkwardly as if he hadn’t meant to do that. Taejoon understood that he still needed time before he would feel comfortable with him taking initiative, and he was fine with waiting for Octavio to make the first move.

They didn’t do much aside from hold hands, though occasionally Octavio would lay across his lap like he used to. They kissed once—Octavio had been climbing up to the attic, before pausing and hopping back down to kiss Taejoon goodnight. They still weren’t sleeping in the same room, but it didn’t bother him too much.

He also wasn’t bothered by the fact that they didn’t kiss as much as they used to. Quite frankly, he was glad for it; with so many kids everywhere and Mystik watching him like a hawk, there was very little opportunity to kiss Octavio even if he wanted to. Carter had also witnessed the goodnight kiss (a brief peck on the lips) and had yelled out dramatically, covering his eyes with his hands, which further solidified Taejoon’s qualms about kissing around the kids.

Because they didn’t sleep in the same room, Taejoon often took to the couch, limbs a little too long, but for once he was glad that they were made of metal. It meant a lot less cramps than he would’ve gotten in his previous body. 

He was curled up on the couch now, drifting in and out of sleep, not sure if he wanted to wake up but also not sure if he wanted to fall asleep, either. He kept having recurring nightmares about what had happened at the labs, something he had yet to disclose to anyone, mostly because he wasn’t sure if they were real.

A lot of them were the same—just him weighing down on Octavio, suffocating, but a lot of them were different too. Sometimes Octavio fought back, sometimes he just lied there limply, and other times he was rescued by someone else. Who that someone was often changed, but the weirdest one had been when Mila had burst in and tackled Taejoon.

That one had been so absurd that the feelings of regret and self-loathing he usually felt in the morning had been replaced with confusion as he wondered, _What the hell_.

“Tae...”

He frowned as he shifted a little on the couch, tugging a little at the blanket wrapped around him. Though he didn’t feel temperature, it still felt nice to have a blanket. Normal. The tiny cat was held close to his face too, an item of comfort he hadn't felt in over a year.

“Tae.”

He had another long day of doing nothing ahead of him...another day of laying around, not allowed outside, daydreaming of what life could be, but ultimately wasn’t. Another day of trying not to let anger consume him, as he had lost his identity and home and sister and...

“Taejoon!”

Realizing that the voice he had been hearing was not a part of his half-asleep daze, Taejoon jerked into a sitting position, startling Octavio, who immediately scrambled back, eyes wide. Taejoon stared at his boyfriend, mouth dry, before managing to get out,

“What?”

“I need to go to the pharmacy,” Octavio rushed out, and Taejoon noticed that his boyfriend’s face was flushed a deep red. It also looked like he had been crying. Instantly feeling concerned, Taejoon rose to his feet, fearing the worst as he approached the other man.

 _Is he hurt?_ And then, irrationally, _did I do something?_

“Why? What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Octavio said, looking to be very flustered. “I don’t know where the pharmacy is, so I need you to take me.”

“I can’t,” he said, frowning. He didn't know what was up with him, but he was still concerned, worried that something awful had happened. What could he possibly need the pharmacy for? “Whatever is wrong, Mystik or Jordan can get it for you.”

“No!” Octavio half-shouted, sounding shrill, but he instantly quieted, as if remembering that Mystik was asleep in the other room. “I don’t want them to know.”

Now feeling bewildered, Taejoon asked, “Octavio, I can’t help you if I don’t-”

“I’m on my fucking period, _okay_?” Octavio hissed at him, even going so far as to stamp his foot in anger. “I haven’t taken T in months and I woke up and there was blood everywhere!"

Taejoon stared at him, genuinely confused, because _what do you mean you’re on your period_ —when he suddenly got it, and he felt like an idiot. “Oh.”

“So I need to go to the pharmacy, and I need to steal testosterone,” Octavio said, and that just sounded like a disaster _waiting_ to happen. He understood the need to steal, as they couldn't exactly fake a prescription, but the risk of getting caught could be far more devastating than the other man realized.

“I would rather we ask Mystik to do it,” Taejoon sighed, running his hand through his hair, and Octavio crossed his arms, staring hard at the floor in silence. He waited patiently for his boyfriend to speak, taking the time to rub the sleep out of his eyes and yawn while they stood there.

“I don’t want anyone to know,” Octavio finally said after his initial agitation had passed. "Nobody knows about me here, and I want to keep it that way. Yeah, everyone called me by the right name back at home, but they've all seen me... _before._ It's not like that here."

Taejoon understood the want for a fresh start, a planet where nobody knew anything about you—but it was still _dangerous_. If they went out there was always the chance that they could be caught, even if they were covered from head to toe in gear. Taejoon wouldn’t be able to go out with covering every inch of his body aside from his face lest anyone notice his metallic parts, and even then, he would bring suspicion upon himself for being so covered up.

With a sigh, he debated with himself for a few moments. He didn’t want Octavio to go out by himself, though he was sympathetic to his reasoning. He also didn’t want to accompany him and risk all of their hard work to get here by going out and getting immediately caught.

He looked at his boyfriend, whose face was no longer as red, though the tear tracks were still visible, so it was clearly causing him much more distress than he was willing to let on, and he could imagine why. Not taking any of his testosterone along with them had been a severe oversight, and he didn't blame the other man for forgetting about it entirely, having had a lot on his plate.

...Mystik had said that Octavio’s face didn’t match up with that old picture of his, and Octavio himself had been saved by this fact on the dropship...if he got caught, there was a greater chance that he wouldn't be recognized versus Taejoon, whose face was still very much the same...

Taejoon himself couldn’t go out, but he could at least write down the directions to a nearby pharmacy.

Taejoon led Octavio downstairs, first directing him to where the pads were located, and telling him that he would be on one of the computers in the playroom. His boyfriend shut the bathroom door behind him, and he made his way down to the first floor, seeing a few of the other kids awake. Lindsay, the girl who had bragged about her multiplication scores, was carefully building a complicated LEGO set with Amir, another kid who seemed hell bent on proving to Taejoon that he was just as good as him.

He had left a sort of legacy on this place, he supposed, and he wasn’t really used to all of the admiration. Perhaps Mystik had lamented about his talents while she had thought he was dead as her own way of mourning, and that had left a lasting impression on the kids, who often looked to him for answers when they didn’t have any. It was a little cool, if also a bit overwhelming.

“Nice work, guys,” he told the two of them politely, stepping around the LEGO set, and Lindsay asked,

“Do you want to build it with us?”

“No thanks, I have something really important to do.”

“Like what?” Amir complained, sitting back on his heels. "All you do is sit inside all day.”

Taejoon pursed his lips. “...That’s not true.”

(It was.)

He left them behind and booted up one of the computers—the one he’d used to sit at. It was a habit, and if he was remembering correctly, this was also Jordan’s computer. He bypassed her password, feeling a little bit of guilt at doing so, but he was astounded at how easy it was. Shouldn’t she be more...

The computer suddenly locked him out, and turned off. He had underestimated her.

Taejoon moved to a different computer, this one owned by one of the younger kids, and made a mental note to ask Mystik to get him his own laptop. She was already in the process of getting him a phone, and he didn’t want to ask too much of her, but he also didn’t want to have to go through this every time he needed to look something up.

Taejoon pulled a sheet of notebook paper to himself as the computer started, bypassing the password once again. He honestly didn’t know if Octavio knew how to read directions—the younger man using him as a map back when driving on his bike pointed towards no—but he would try his best to do everything clearly. He would choose a pharmacy a little bit away from here, so that on the slim chance that he _did_ get recognized, it wouldn’t be too near the orphanage.

He wanted to give the authorities zero reason to even _look_ in their direction. He just hoped that Octavio would also be careful.

As he thought about his boyfriend, he remembered the other morning, where he had, embarrassingly, admitted that he wanted to marry him. While he still stuck to that, he wished he hadn’t asked at _all_ ; he felt like he might have put an unnecessary amount of pressure on Octavio, especially so soon after he had admitted all of the ways in which he felt guilty.

(He really didn't want to think about the way his boyfriend had sobbed against his chest, so open and _emotional_ for the first time in front of him, but he was somewhat glad for it. Glad that Octavio had finally, _finally_ opened up to him, even though he had been pushed to the breaking point by a fear of consequence and an overwhelming amount of guilt.

Small, devastating steps, but steps nonetheless.)

Taejoon honestly hadn’t meant to tell him the marriage thing yet, but it had just felt like the right time to do so. He had been afraid that they would go right back to the way they’d been afterward and that he would lose his chance, their progress, so he had latched onto that opportunity to tell him how he felt. 

Truth be told, Taejoon wasn’t very sure about marriage, either. If he did marry somebody, he wanted it to be Octavio, but he’d never really considered marriage before now, and he knew the reason why. It felt like there was a ticking time bomb on his life, and he had no idea when it would go off.

That rang true for pretty much everyone else on the planet, but he was one mistake away from getting found out and subsequently killed, so there was now an undercurrent of urgency in the things he did, like he needed to rush to complete important milestones in what little life he had left.

It was a strange feeling, both the numbness and the urgency. The numbness at the fact that he was living on borrowed time, that his identity and sister and home were gone, that every day could be his last—and the resulting urgency to lock onto everything he still had; Mystik, Jordan, Carter, the rest of the kids, and Octavio.

He knew Mystik felt the same way—she had yet to send the two of them away, even though it would be safer for everyone, because she had just gotten him back. He’d just gotten _her_ back, and he didn’t want to leave, even though he knew he probably should. He just didn’t know how long it would take until he was discovered, and he wanted to spend as much time with her as possible before then.

The same applied to Octavio too; he still felt guilty for dragging him into this mess, that if he hadn’t been apprehended or if he had at least talked Octavio into staying at home, nobody would think that he was dead. Octavio could have left home at any other time; sure, it would have been harder to find his own footing by himself, but it would have been safer for the other in the end. He would never have gotten hurt, and his life wouldn't have been flipped upside down, like Taejoon's had.

Aside from his guilt, he was just relieved at the fact that they were still together. That the feelings he had weren’t just a product of programming, but actual, legitimate care on his part—and the undercurrent of urgency he felt made him want to take their relationship to the next logical step.

He opened up the browser, chewing absentmindedly on the end of his pen as he thought about it. Marrying Octavio sounded nice, and he _did_ want it, but knew that logically neither of them were ready for it. Not yet, and maybe never could be. He still yearned, though. Yearned for a sense of normalcy, even if it was a fleeting illusion, and just an extreme attachment to one of the few things he had left.

( _"I love you," Taejoon murmured to Octavio, pressing his lips to the other man's temple. His boyfriend was curled up in his arms, having finally felt comfortable enough with him to initiate something like this._

 _"Te amo," Octavio responded, and when Taejoon blinked in confusion, laughed. The other's smile made a grin of his own spread across his face, happy to see it after weeks of it being gone. "I forgot—that's I love you, in Spanish."_ )

Finally realizing that he had been zoning out for far too long, Taejoon went to look up directions for a pharmacy a little bit away from here, typing out _pharma_ —but before he could finish the word, the top suggested news story made him pause.

_Silva Pharmaceuticals suing Hammond Robotics._

Taejoon stared at the headline and its accompanying picture; Kishou Silva perched on a chair across from a talk show host, for once not wearing all-white, but rather all-black. The story was new; it was night time on Psamathe, and this interview had apparently aired only an hour ago.

Taejoon considered ignoring it, but curiosity was gnawing at him from the inside, and this only intensified when Octavio finally joined him, mumbling something about having needed to put his sheets in the wash.

“Yah,” he said to get his boyfriend’s attention, and the other looked up from his phone. “Look at this.”

Octavio leaned over his shoulder, frowning at the news article, before reaching over to place his hand on top of Taejoon’s and clicking on the link for him. They both read the passage, Octavio mouthing the words to himself while Taejoon scanned the story before him, several phrases jumping out at him at once.

_Silva says that a staff member informed him of the rogue’s odd behavior—claims that his son had formed a strange relationship with it—failure to disclose that it was a prototype—suspicions that it was actually a simulacrum..._

“Holy shit,” Octavio said, verbalizing Taejoon’s immediate thoughts. He realized that his mouth was hanging open a bit, and he quickly snapped it shut, rereading the article just to make _sure_ that he wasn’t imagining things.

The gist of it was that Kishou had figured out that Hammond was lying to both him and the public; that he planned on taking direct action, first by withdrawing funding, and then by suing the robotics program; and that he suspected that Taejoon might not have been a robot, but a simulacrum. Someone once _alive_.

Taejoon’s mind was reeling—Kishou Silva was so close to figuring out the _truth_ , something he never thought would have happened. Not even a basic truth, like the fact that Taejoon had been sentient; but the reality that he had once been an alive _person,_ shoved into a robotic body and forced into a subservient position.

Rereading the article again, one sentence kept his attention: _Silva says that a staff member informed him of the rogue's odd behavior._ That must have been the tip-off that something wasn't right, that everything wasn't what it seemed, and the catalyst...

_Irina._

“Internet sleuths are going to have a field day,” Octavio said, breaking him away from his thoughts, and Taejoon glanced up to see that his boyfriend was biting his nails again, eyes wide. “How long until people start looking up recent deaths? Or people that disappeared? How long until people discover _you?_ ”

They stared at one another. Taejoon was too shocked to come up with a reply, because the idea that Hammond and the Syndicate could get exposed for their actions was— _had_ —been unimaginable. Un _thinkable._

He went through several trains of thought at once, first regretting the fact that he had deleted all evidence of them doing this to him, before remembering that they had saved their security footage to a third party, and could’ve done the same with his blueprints...all of the evidence was out there, _somewhere_...it just needed to be found...

“Taejoon,” Octavio said, and he came out of his trance. His boyfriend was staring at him too, and he was constantly shifting around, almost jogging in place with energy. He clasped his hands together in front of him, eyes still wide, as he continued, “Okay, this is going to sound _crazy_ , but—”

“Crazier than what we just read?” Taejoon scoffed in disbelief, and a new voice asked,

“What’d you guys just read?”

They both looked to the entrance of the playroom to see Jordan standing there, holding a cup of hot chocolate and wrapped in a fluffy yellow bathrobe. She wandered over to them, a curious look on her face, and Octavio pointed at the screen wordlessly.

While she leaned over Taejoon’s shoulder to read the article, Octavio looked him dead in the eye, chewing on his lower lip as if debating something. Taejoon stared back, absentmindedly wringing his hands together as he felt energy thrum beneath his metal components, when Octavio finally blurted out,

“We should call my dad.”

Scratch what Taejoon had said earlier. It did really did sound crazy. 

_For_ what _reason?_

_Why?_

“Excuse me?” Taejoon said out loud, unsure if he had heard correctly. Jordan, having evidently finished reading the article at the same time, yelled out,

“ _What!"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [dabs] bet u didnt see this coming  
> originally this chapter included octavio going to the pharmacy and finding out the kishou thing by breaking in and discovering that someone was smuggling stim from hammond labs and that that would be their last shipment as silva pharm. would stop producing things for hammond, before i realized that i had the simple solution in front of me. Google.
> 
> thank u for reading !!! i really am trying to wrap this up both as quickly and as neatly as possible, so thanks for sticking with me !


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [cries] here u go

“I understand what you’re saying,” Mystik said, holding her mug of tea close to her face. Her eyebrows were drawn together and her mouth was thinned into a line as she studied Octavio over its rim, judgemental. “But it’s not going to work.”

“That's what you think," Octavio said back, hands placed on his hips and foot tapping impatiently.

They were currently in the dining room just after breakfast, the smell of slightly-burnt pancakes still in the air. The three of them—Taejoon, Octavio, and Mystik—were either sitting at the main table or around it. Everyone else was in their rooms, as it was Saturday, and Saturdays were for cleaning. 

Taejoom was leaned against the wall, arms crossed as he watched the two of them argue. He had changed into a new outfit for the day, a pink hoodie with an illustration of Molang holding a peach, as well as a pair of sweatpants. Molang was cute, but he honestly kind of regretted letting Jordan pick out his clothes for him, as it made him feel like he was twelve—but that wasn’t his biggest worry at the moment.

He was still reeling from the news this morning, unsure of what to make of both it and Octavio’s plan. His boyfriend had practically ran in circles in the playroom, going on about this idea he had—that if his father knew that he was alive, he could help prove Taejoon’s innocence, and then they could live normally.

Taejoon appreciated the sentiment, and wanted nothing more than to live his life peacefully; but he knew that it was going to be much, _much_ more complicated than that.

Firstly, Taejoon meant almost nothing to Kishou. If Octavio reached out to him, Kishou would know that his son was alive and that Taejoon hadn’t killed him, and that was the extent of it—why would he choose to help Taejoon, in any way, shape, or form? Wouldn’t he rather just snatch Octavio back up without another backward glance?

And once he finds out that Octavio is alive, he could very well just drop the lawsuit anyway...well, no, he might still pursue it with the newfound information that Hammond had purposely doctored the footage to make it seem like Octavio had died...

There were too many _what ifs_ and _whys_ involved for Taejoon to feel confident about any of it. Even if Kishou kept up the lawsuit because Hammond had altered the footage, how would that help Taejoon? He would still have a target painted on his back unless Kishou specifically chose to defend him and sue on his behalf as well, but first he would have to be proven _innocent_.

 _...Would he?_ Innocent or guilty, turning someone into a simulacrum against their will was definitely a human rights violation of some sort, right? So Taejoon wouldn’t even need to be proven innocent in order to be defended in court, but once it was over, would he be forced into police custody? Who was to say that the Syndicate wouldn’t just kill him for good when he was out of the public eye? 

He would definitely need to have his innocence proven after all. There was a strong possibility that they would still try to kill him even as a free man, but perhaps by then the Syndicate would be placed under heavy scrutiny for faking a crime, and it would sow public distrust and turmoil, and they would lose some of their power...

So many _what ifs_. So many unsure ideas. So many fears and worst-case scenarios, so much hope and also so much doubt. He could see it all reflected in Mystik’s eyes as she stared Octavio down, no doubt having the same exact thought process as Taejoon, but choosing to voice hardly any of it out loud.

“Your father will not help Kim,” Mystik said, so intently that it sounded like a declaration. Taejoon scowled at that name, but said nothing about it as he watched Octavio's eyes narrow, challenged.

“He could if I talked him into it.”

“There is no benefit to Silva helping him.” She set her mug down firmly, and the cat in her lap gave a little _mrrrph?_ of interest. “If you reach out to him, you’re just going to put my son in danger again."

“I won’t,” Octavio said, confident. He didn't know where any of this confidence was coming from, in direct opposition to his own current doubts—when the other suddenly confronted him directly with it, asking, “It’ll be fine, right, Tae?”

His boyfriend was now looking back at him expectantly, and Taejoon...didn’t want to answer that. He didn’t _know_ the answer, as there was no simple and obvious one.

On the one hand, Mystik was right—if Octavio told his father about him and Kishou alerted the authorities, Taejoon was as good as dead. On the other, he didn’t want to completely dismiss the possibility of his innocence being proven, the small chance that he could one day get to walk a free man.

Kishou Silva had _money_. He had excellent lawyers, Taejoon knew, and the fact that the lawsuit hadn’t instantly been suppressed by the Syndicate and Hammond was because Kishou was equally as powerful as them, if not more so, with his near-monopoly on manufactured drugs and the direct influence he had on the both of them.

A lesser person never could have achieved it—Taejoon had daydreamed about them getting exposed one day for their crimes and the trauma they had caused him, but it had seemed so far away, so _impossible_. He was just one man; and yeah, he had a few kids and Mystik by his side, but that was _nothing_ compared to the sheer scale and power of Hammond and the Syndicate. They were akin to annoying little fleas crawling in the pelt of a vicious wolf.

If there was a chance that Kishou's lawyers, his money, his _power,_ could be on his side, he wanted to take it. It was risky, he knew, but he was desperate. He wanted his name and his life back— _they_ had already taken his body from him, and for a time, even his free will. He wouldn’t let them take anything else.

( _But what if they take Octavio from you too?_ A little voice inside of him screamed. _What if this just ends up worse than before? You_ just _got Mystik back. You_ just _got home._

But it wasn’t the same.

It never would be.

Not until he was proven innocent.)

He argued with himself, knowing that the others were staring at him, and he hated being put in this position; with two of the most important people in his life at odds, both with his best interests at heart. He could see both of their points, the drawbacks and the risks and the missed opportunities, and he didn't know which one he was willing to take. Not until he met Octavio's bright eyes, so determined to fix what he had done wrong, even if he didn't say it out loud.

Taejoon could see the way it clawed at the other from beneath his skin, the regret and guilt and anger all rolled into one, and he wondered if his boyfriend viewed this situation as a shot at redemption despite Taejoon having forgiven him already. He didn't know why his boyfriend still felt like this when it was _him_ who should be on his knees, begging the other to let him make up for the cracks in his voice and the bruises on his neck.

“I think it’s worth a shot,” Taejoon finally said after a very long while, snapping himself out of his internal spiral of self-hatred, and Mystik closed her eyes with a sigh. He shot Octavio a look when the other pumped his fist in celebration, expression serious. “We would need to take precautions before we do anything drastic, but it could work. I could get my life back.”

“Or you could very well lose it again,” Mystik snapped, and he bowed his head guiltily at the well-disguised pain in her voice. “You’re already on your second—no, _third_ —chance. I don’t think the universe will be willing to dispense you a fourth.”

“Is this really living?” He mumbled, unable to help but speak, even if it felt like he was digging his own grave as he did so. It was Octavio's turn to give him a look. “Hiding in fear? I can’t even say my own _name_. This isn’t a life. This is just another form of imprisonment.”

“I’m doing my best, son,” his mother said, and he tried not to meet her eyes. Octavio had pressed himself flat against the wall, as if trying to disappear from the conversation entirely. “You don’t understand. You’re not just going to put _yourself_ in danger by doing this.”

He knew that. He knew that Mystik, Jordan, Carter, and the rest of the kids could get in trouble for what he wanted to do, and he already felt like enough of a burden as it was. He was already a fugitive, but if they managed to pin his location by tracking the reception from Octavio's phone once he made that call, it would be like sending a flare up that said _come get me—_ one that would burn everyone he cared about in the process.

So he would leave. Pack his things up and erase his existence here, so that if Kishou reported him to the Gaean police, they wouldn’t find anything at the orphanage. They would be free of the pain that he represented, the weight he added to their shoulders, and he would be on the run once again, instead of cornered like a mouse. 

(Maybe then Octavio would be free to return to his life back on Psamathe, not shackled to Taejoon anymore. Not forced to live in hiding like he was, not forced to put himself in danger by association. Octavio could go home and leave him behind. Taejoon wouldn’t blame him; he knew the other man hadn't signed up for _this_ when they planned to leave.)

He finally lifted his eyes to meet Mystik’s, his caretaker's face tight, and he said bluntly, “I’ll run, then.”

Her gaze hardened, and she swept out of the room without another word. Taejoon felt guilty; he knew that she was looking out for him, that her concerns for him were often at odds with her concerns for the orphanage and that he had put her in a difficult position. But he was tired of living like this. He just wanted his life back.

And if it took a turn for the worse, well...at least the orphanage would be left untouched by his actions.

At least Octavio would have something to fall back on.

He pushed away from the wall, and Octavio stared up at him with wide eyes. A moment passed, sizing each other up and looking out for the smallest of changes, before his boyfriend approached him, reaching his hands out in a grabby manner—a silent demand that they touch. He obliged, wrapping his arms around Octavio’s waist carefully, mind still racing.

They stayed like that for a few seconds, Taejoon keeping his hands carefully still on the other. Octavio was practically vibrating with the need to speak in his arms, so he brushed his lips lightly against the other's forehead and asked, "What?"

"Thanks for trusting me," his boyfriend burst out, and he fought back a smile.

"Thank you for trying to help me."

“I know it’s insane, but c’mon, my dad’s lawyers are like...insanely good. They can get you out of this!”

“I know,” Taejoon hummed. “... _If_ they decide to help me.”

Octavio’s face pinched at that, his energy fading as quickly as it had come. He bit his lip, as if holding back, and Taejoon noticed, waiting for him to speak. The other just grabbed a fistful of his pink hoodie silently, as if deep in thought, and he squeezed his waist lightly, trying to encourage him to tell him what was wrong. Octavio eventually said,

“I didn’t know you liked Molang.”

Taejoon blinked at the abrupt change in subject, and responded, “I like cute things.”

“Is that why you like me?”

“Definitely.”

Octavio didn’t falter, though his ears were a little pink as he rolled his eyes. “You weren’t supposed to _agree_ with me, cariño.”

“Would you have rather I said you’re ugly?”

“No! It’s just normally you say, _‘you’re insufferable’,_ or, _‘you’re such a narcissist’._ ” Octavio punched him lightly in his arm, though it was the bad arm, so he wouldn’t have noticed had he not been looking directly at the other while he did it. “It’s our thing to make fun of each other.”

Taejoon smiled, and his boyfriend arched an eyebrow at his reaction, bemused. “I know, but sometimes I want to be honest with you. You’re cute.”

He watched the flush continue to rise into the man's face, and felt amused when Octavio grumbled out, “Can you stop saying cheesy shit like that. Please.”

“Sorry.” Taejoon moved his hands slowly down from his boyfriend’s waist to his hips, keeping a careful eye on his body language to make sure that he wasn’t uncomfortable. He still wasn’t too sure about touching the other man like this, but he wanted to take every opportunity to do so. Any moment could be his last.

( _What if they take Octavio away from you?_ The doubt came back, a parasitic paranoia taking root in his brain, and he tried to shake it off. He didn't want to have those thoughts right now. He just wanted to hold his boyfriend.)

Octavio placed his hands on Taejoon’s chest, framing Molang between his fingers, lips drawn into a pout as he stared at the decal on his hoodie, as if debating something. After what seemed like an age, he stood on his tiptoes, and kissed Taejoon’s chin, giving him a light, airy feeling that seemed to make his doubts evaporate.

“Everything’s gonna be fine,” the other man said, though he sounded more like he was trying to reassure himself and not Taejoon. “And if it’s not—hey! I like running.”

When Taejoon shot him an unimpressed look, he backtracked: “Buuuut it’s not about me. It’s about you.”

“How are you planning to convince your father to help me, then?” Taejoon asked, genuinely curious, and already with a few ideas in mind, but Octavio bit his lip again before pulling away, leaving Taejoon to mourn the loss of him in his arms. 

They stared at each other once more, and the brief feeling of normalcy they had seemed to rapidly fade away. They were back to awkward and careful, tiptoeing around one another, and Taejoon hated the feeling. His hands twitched by his sides as he fought back the urge to reach over and brush his boyfriend's hair out of his face in a tender gesture, one of his favorites to extend.

“...This sucks,” Octavio finally sighed out, and he hummed in response.

“What does?”

“I have cramps.”

Another change of subject. Taejoon got the idea and decided to leave it alone for now, but they would need to talk about it soon so that they could both be on the same page—he didn’t want his boyfriend making any rash decisions without any pre-planning. They needed to be _careful_ with this, because he didn't want to risk everybody's safety more than he already had.

“We have painkillers,” Taejoon told him, and extended his hand in a silent offer, out of habit more than anything. He flinched, expecting to be rejected, but surprisingly Octavio placed his hand into his, and allowed himself to be gently led down the hall.

* * *

The morning passed, and it felt weird. Like it was his last day alive, even though he knew nothing drastic was going to occur. He stumbled numbly through the day, helping the kids clean up, letting them brag to him about their accomplishments and goals, putting a movie on with them and watching about half of it before growing bored—but none of it felt natural. Normal.

Octavio had been dragged upstairs by Carter, the younger having begged him to let him play his video games, and Jordan was practicing some cheer routine with a couple of boys. Mystik was nowhere to be seen, apartment empty and blue truck gone, and he was worried about how much he must have upset her.

Perhaps she had gone on a drive to clear her head—she used to do that with he and Mila after particularly bad experiences, taking them out to the country roads so that they could wonder at the sheer emptiness of it all. So that they could scream and not be heard. So that they could hurt and weep and vent and rage.

Was she doing any of those things right now? He himself had only managed to stay so calm throughout the day by trying not to think about it too hard, but he knew that, eventually, he would have to. That he would have to confront all of his doubts and worries about this whole situation, and overcome them—they couldn’t afford to half-ass this. They had to be ready for any outcome.

“Hyeon?" Lindsay asked, and he snapped out of his thoughts and fixed her with a look. She had evidently grown bored of the movie too, and had a coloring book in her lap.

“Hm?”

“Are you leaving?” 

He sighed quietly, and mumbled, “I don’t know yet.”

“I’m going to be sad,” Lindsay said.

“I know.”

“We’re going to miss you.”

“Why?”

“‘Cuz you’ve been here...like, my whole life.”

Taejoon smiled just a little at that. “Lindsay, you were five the last time I saw you. You're nine now.”

"I don't care! Why do you have to leave?" She huffed, and carded her fingers through her long blonde hair. He had gotten pretty good at braiding it these past couple of weeks, and seeing that she was upset, he gently nudged her shoulder in a silent offer to do it for her again. She just scowled, and shook her head to the side so that her hair whipped him in the face.

“No! I’m _mad_ at you.”

 _Isn’t everyone?_ He thought to himself, but chose not to voice this out loud. He stared blankly at the TV screen for another few minutes before getting to his feet and excusing himself from the room, climbing up to Mystik’s apartment. He was so lost in thought that he nearly tripped twice on the twisting stairs, but managed to right himself each time before disaster could strike.

He could hear Octavio and Carter shouting at each other in the attic, apparently engaged in an intense game, so he decided to leave them alone for now. He wandered around Mystik’s apartment, trying to give himself something to do, but he wasn’t sure what. He picked up his stuffed cat, which seemed to glare at him beadily with its one eye, the other having popped off years ago.

He set it back down and placed his hands in his pockets, looking at his options of entertainment.

He could watch TV by himself, maybe? There were only so many Saturday morning cartoons and children’s movies that he could handle, and it felt like it was all he had been watching for the past month, so he knelt down in front of Mystik’s bookcase to scan all of the DVDs she had.

He knew for a fact that she did not watch half of these, and even spotted a few from his own collection before his apartment had been raided; mostly the thrillers, a genre they both loved. He inched out an old romcom and glanced at the cover with some reluctance. Despite whatever Octavio said about him being a sap, he didn’t care for romcoms, but he could go for something mindless right now.

Just...maybe not _this_ mindless.

Putting the romcom back, Taejoon glanced over the rest of his choices, but paused when he saw something familiar tucked into the corner of the bookcase. Pulling it out, he disturbed a thick layer of dust, and sneezed rather violently. Apparently this thing hadn’t been touched since he’d died.

It was he and Mila’s old scrapbook; thick and blue, their favorite color, with about a hundred photos and other things pasted inside. It had technically been more Mila’s than his, as she was the one who had put most of it together, but once she had finished it she’d remarked _‘this is too cheesy for me’_ and gave it to him, instead.

(He was starting to notice a pattern.)

Taejoon brushed the dust off with his bad hand, grimacing at the way it built up on the gleaming metal, before flipping the book open to see all of the pictures inside. He skipped several pages, all of the embarrassing pictures of the two of them at a young age, and slowed down once he reached their late teens. That was when they’d first started saving up to get out of here, to find somewhere and start a new life, away from their troubled orphan origins. 

Mila’s first money-making plan had been scamming people into buying life insurance, which...had _not_ ended well, but they didn’t go to jail, at least. Her next idea was much tamer; she made charms, for phones and wallets and keyrings. A few of those charms were squashed inside of the scrapbook, right next to a very bad photograph of him about to go to his first job interview.

He grinned to himself at how miserable he looked wearing that awful tie, but his grin faded as he kept flipping through the pages, nearing the end of the scrapbook. Not the end of the pages, but when the photographs stopped—only a few weeks before his death. 

The most recent picture was of he and Mila beside Mystik, smiling serenely at the camera, a fresh start in their minds and a light feeling in the air. Things were going to change, they had thought. They’d start anew, claw their way out of this part of the city and make it big...together, as a family...

Taejoon slammed the scrapbook shut and shoved it back into the bookcase, anger flaring through him, but just as quickly as it had come it was gone, replaced by bitterness. _They_ had taken that all from him—his hopes, his future, his sister. Even after he’d thought he’d gotten some of it back, it was only a sliver of what he’d previously had, still tied down to the fact that they had done this to him.

Framed him, _ruined_ his life, tore him away from his family. Took his body from him, his free will, and dumped him on another planet carelessly. Left him to rot, to mindlessly serve some rich asshole and his _brat_ of a son.

He let out a quick puff of breath, shoulders slumping as he deflated. He’d been experiencing that too much lately, the intense surges of rage mixed with resentment. He always managed to calm himself down once his anger started extending itself to Octavio, because he knew that it wasn’t the other man’s fault. And, by extension, it wasn’t technically Kishou’s fault either, but he would gladly shift all of the blame onto the elder Silva rather than Octavio.

And speaking of...

The hatch in the ceiling slid open, the ladder descending clunkily to the ground. Carter hopped down the rungs two at a time, singing “I won you lost I won you lost I won you lossssttt” while Octavio scowled at him from above.

“You cheated,” his boyfriend accused.

“He’s a thirteen-year-old,” Taejoon pointed out.

“Well, I know he cheated somehow! You know how good I am at this game!”

“I think you’re just mad,” Carter said, before sticking his tongue out. “You’re funny when you’re mad.”

“Am not,” Octavio said, crossing his arms petulantly. Taejoon raised an eyebrow, fighting back a smile—Octavio was usually the one who got people worked up and annoyed, not the other way around. Perhaps he had met his match in Carter, who was just as spoiled as he had been.

“Hey, Hyeon,” Carter said, and Taejoon glanced at him. “Is it true? Y’all are really leaving?”

“I don’t know yet,” Taejoon repeated, and the boy rolled his eyes.

“That’s lame. You can’t leave before I get my hair done! Jordan said she’d give me braids too!”

“Maybe we’ll still be around by then,” Taejoon sighed, and nudged the other’s foot with his own. “Go downstairs and play with the others.”

“Why? So you two can k-i-s-s?”

“Maybe so,” Octavio said, jumping down from the hatch onto the floor. He nearly lost his balance, and the thud was so loud that one of the china pieces on the mantel fell over and broke. “Get lost, kiddo.”

“Ewww.” Carter grimaced, before darting out of Mystik’s apartment, complaining about ‘adult stuff’.

“Kids are so obnoxious,” Octavio huffed, stepping forward to close the door behind him. His voice was a little strained, a combination of what Taejoon had done to him and all that screaming with Carter.

“Pot, meet kettle.”

“What d’you mean? I was never _that_ annoying!” When Taejoon gave him a look, he rolled his eyes. “Whatever, I can’t stand them.”

“I think you’re full of shit,” Taejoon hummed, amused. “They love you, and you hang out with them all the time.”

“Because I’d go insane otherwise.”

Taejoon absentmindedly reached out to touch his boyfriend’s waist, but the other dodged his touch, and he let his hand drop. Feeling a little awkward, he cleared his throat, and said,

“We need to talk about what we’re going to do.”

“I thought we already did,” Octavio said. 

“We need a plan.”

“Because I’m so good at following them, right?”

Faintly annoyed by the other's attitude, Taejoon folded his arms over his chest and leveled the other man with a stare. Octavio stared back defiantly, before he sighed, and threw his hands up in surrender.

“Okay, fine. I’m going to tell my old man that if he helps you out, I’ll come back and take over the company. Finish med school and all of that.”

Taejoon’s eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to protest, but Octavio cut him off with a loud, “Whoa, chill, I’m not _really_ going to do it. I’ll just lie to him.”

“That’s risky,” he argued, and Octavio let his hands drop. “If he finds out you’re lying, he could throw me under the bus.”

“We’ve escaped Psamathe once. We can do it again.”

“Can we, Octavio?” He asked, and shook his right arm out, which seemed to draw his boyfriend’s eyes. “You’re acting way too casual about this.”

“I don’t know what else to do,” Octavio said, head tilting to the side in clear frustration. “My dad doesn’t compromise. It’s going to be all or nothing for him.”

Taejoon sighed, running his hand through his hair as he tried to think up something. He didn’t see how Kishou would agree to help him out unless Octavio lied to him, but...who was to say that Kishou wouldn’t accuse him of kidnapping Octavio and making the other man ask him those things? Did this read as a hostage situation? _If you help me out I’ll let your son come back to you?_

As if reading his mind, Octavio said, “And I won’t let him think you took me. I left on my own.”

“He could still twist it to fit his narrative,” Taejoon said back.

“I don’t think he will. Look, he sides with you, there’s even _more_ of a case against Hammond, right? And that’s more money for him.” Octavio rubbed his index finger and thumb together, eyes narrowed. “That’s how we rich people think, ‘Joon—in terms of how much cash something’s going to get us. He’s not just gonna withdraw funding, he’s going to drain them dry.”

Taejoon scuffed the ground with his shoe, taking in Octavio’s words. He wanted so desperately to just be fine with this plan, to move forward with the confidence that this would work—but he was paranoid, and would remain so. He fought down his discomfort, mind racing as he tried to think of a better idea, but he was drawing blanks.

At that moment, the door to Mystik’s apartment opened, and she stepped inside, several bags slung over her arm. She shot them both a look before heaving a great sigh and asking,

“Plotting, are we?”

“Yup,” Octavio said, grinning at her in a way that Taejoon knew would piss her off. “Wanna help?”

“No.” She stepped further into the apartment, and a man followed her inside. Instantly on guard, Taejoon backed away, eyes flickering between her and the stranger, but she waved a dismissive hand and said, “Calm down, he’s come to fix your arm.”

“Oh,” Taejoon said.

“Can’t have you on the run again with a bad hand.”

“Oh,” he repeated. Then, “...You’re letting us go?”

“I can’t stop you,” she said, and the man approached Taejoon with a toolbox in hand. He had close-cropped red hair and bushy eyebrows, and he didn’t look very surprised at the fact that a wanted criminal was in Mystik’s living room. “I’m not happy, but I can’t just abandon you, son. We’ll talk once Fawkes leaves.”

“Good afternoon,” Fawkes said, voice throaty in a way similar to Octavio’s, and he wondered what had happened to him. “Shirt off, please.”

Taejoon eyed the man, who was taller than him, before slowly sliding the hoodie over his head and extending his right arm. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Octavio digging through the shopping bags Mystik had brought inside, pulling out a sleek black box with curiosity alight in his eyes. His attention was soon pulled away by the man pulling his arm straight out of its socket.

“Well, there’s some wire damage, so I’m going to have to repair that.”

“How long?” Mystik asked.

“Eh, hour or two. Depends on if he electrocutes himself or not.”

“Excuse me?” Taejoon asked, but Mystik just nodded in satisfaction. Fawkes worked in silence then, and he tried not to focus on the way the man was messing around with him. He’d always hated biology in high school because the idea of seeing what was inside of him freaked him out, and the same held true even now, despite wildly different components.

“That’s Kim’s,” he heard Mystik say, and glanced over to see Octavio holding a brand new phone.

“Whoa, really?” His boyfriend wandered over, holding it out for Taejoon to see. He held his hand out to take it, flipping it over to look at the brand. “We can text each other now!”

“It needs to be charged.”

“I’ll do it. I’ll add my number, too.” Octavio took the phone from him, grinning, before disappearing from view. He heard the sound of the other climbing up the rungs of the ladder, followed by the hatch closing. Sighing, Taejoon sat back and let Fawkes work on him, thinking over what they had just talked about.

Half an hour or so later, after Mystik had gone downstairs to check on the rest of the orphanage, Fawkes said, “No receptors, huh?”

“What do you mean?” Taejoon hummed, not looking at him, because he was way too close to his face for his own comfort.

“I guess it makes sense. When they put your body together, they didn’t build you like they would a human person. Understand?”

That got his attention. Frowning, Taejoon turned his head just a little, and asked, “Pardon?”

“A guy loses his arm, a guy can get that arm replaced.” Fawkes tapped his wire cutters against the socket of Taejoon’s arm, a dull metal sound following. “But you don’t just replace the arm. You replace the feeling. Maybe a guy lost his flesh and bone, but he doesn’t have to lose his touch, too.”

“Right?”

“They didn’t build you that way. They thought they were putting together a robot, so they didn’t bother giving you any receptors. You don’t process feeling anymore.”

Taejoon was staring at Fawkes fully now, taking in his furrowed, bushy eyebrows and the blisters on his cheek. Several questions were burning inside of him, but the first one that burst out was, “Are you saying I _could_ feel things?”

“With receptors, sure enough.” Fawkes chewed on the inside of his cheek in thought, before adding, “It’d take longer, though. And I don’t feel comfortable taking you apart in full, so I won’t be able to add them to certain areas, but I could handle the rest just fine.”

“How would you make this happen?”

“I’ll need to chip you first, so I’ve got to ask for your mom’s permission.”

That was a phrase he hadn’t heard in a while. He couldn’t help it; he gave a smile.

“That would be nice.”

“Alright, buddy. I’ll be back.” Fawkes set his tools down, and left the room. Taejoon stared at his back, mind reeling at this new information. He supposed it made sense, everything that the man had said—he knew that very few people were aware of his true nature when he had been built back at Hammond, and likely didn't give him receptors because of it.

He was almost a little _glad_ that he had had his arm ripped off, because otherwise he never would have found out this information, nor of the existence of receptors in the first place. He realized that his smile had grown much wider at the thought of being able to feel things again, and fought to school his face back into a neutral expression. 

Fawkes soon returned with Mystik behind him, and they discussed a few things, how he would need a couple of days to do it all. Taejoon nodded along to their words, pretending to listen, but he was still thinking about it, that after almost a year of nothing, he would finally be able to feel again. And for the first time, maybe he could feel...

Fawkes approached and he straightened up, allowing the man to reconnect his arm with the promise that he would return. He soon left, bidding the both of them goodnight as Mystik swiftly shut the door behind him.

Silence followed, before eventually Taejoon got to his feet and started pulling his hoodie back on. When he emerged from it once again, he saw that Mystik had turned to face him.

“I’ve prepared a safe house for you two,” she told him, blunt, and he nodded mutely. “If anything goes wrong, you need to flee there, and stop contacting me.”

Taejoon bowed his head, a small bubble of regret forming inside of him. “Right.”

“Just for a while. I can’t have you putting the children in danger, Park.”

At the usage of his proper name, he glanced back up, and she took several steps forward before placing her chubby hand against his cheek in a gentle manner. She was not a gentle person, usually, so he closed his eyes and tried to commit the motherly feeling of it to memory.

“I hope you two figure out what you’re going to do. After this, I can’t help you any more.”

“I understand,” he said quietly, before holding his arms out and hugging her. She allowed it, patting him on the back a little awkwardly. He wasn’t really used to being this tall compared to her—he had been only an inch or so taller than her in his previous body, but now it felt like he towered above her.

"Thank you," he murmured, and tried not to feel like he had chosen Octavio over her. He just wanted his life back.

Mystik soon dismissed him with a short, “Get out of my sight”, so he pulled the ladder down and ascended into the attic. Poking his head inside, he saw Octavio hanging upside down from his bed, staring at his new phone with a bored expression.

“May I come in?”

“Sí.”

It was a little odd hearing Octavio speak Spanish now that that wasn’t the main language they communicated in anymore, but he was able to notice the differences in how he spoke the two. In his native tongue Octavio’s voice was deeper, more self-assured, while in English his voice got higher. Not exactly unconfident, but it almost seemed like his voice cracked more. Or maybe it cracked and broke in Spanish too, but because he didn’t speak it, he couldn’t really tell...

“Are you just going to stare at me all day?” Octavio asked, amused, and Taejoon climbed into the attic fully before pulling the ladder up with him. He sat on the floor across from his boyfriend, something he’d taken to doing whenever he visited him up here. He always waited for permission to get closer, careful not to intrude too far into the other man’s space.

“Is that my phone?”

“Yup,” Octavio said, popping the ‘p’. He flipped over so that he was lying on his stomach, and slid the phone across the floor towards Taejoon. He picked it up and turned it on, frowning at the fact that it had a passcode.

“Why is there-”

“It’s my birthday,” Octavio said. “Because I know how much you love me.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“I know.” Octavio smiled at him, but it quickly faded, and he asked more seriously, “So, are we ready?”

“Not yet,” Taejoon murmured, swiping through the phone. He entered Mystik’s number, having memorized it, before changing his mind and deleting it. If he kept her as a contact in his phone that would bring suspicion upon her—no, he would just manually type her number if he ever needed her. 

“Why not?”

Taejoon repeated everything that Fawkes had told him, and Octavio’s eyes glazed over midway through, clearly bored. When he noticed that Taejoon had stopped speaking, he said, “Cool. So we have to wait?”

“Just for a couple of days.”

“But that’s—” And here, Octavio rolled over onto his back, kicking his legs up into the air. “—boringgggg.”

“I want feeling back,” Taejoon said, and bit back his next words— _I want to feel you._

“Personally, if I didn’t have to feel pain, I wouldn’t,” Octavio said, reaching a hand up to absentmindedly run his fingers over the faint marks on his neck, and Taejoon bit down hard on the inside of his cheek, fighting back a wave of guilt. “But alright, fine.”

Octavio turned his video game back on as Taejoon kept looking through his new phone, not having held one in a while. It was the newest model, he realized, and it was strange how much the interface had changed since the last phone he'd had, a generation or two behind. He decided to keep the passcode, and scoffed a little when he saw the name Octavio had saved himself under— _’Sexiest Man Alive.’_

The weekend passed sluggishly, slow as molasses, and on Monday the kids went out to their first day of school. The orphanage was suddenly empty save for one toddler too young to attend, and she spent most of her time asleep on the couch. They had what felt like the whole place to themselves, and spent much of the day going over what they intended to do, and how they would react if everything went wrong.

They were sitting in the kitchen now, Octavio perched on the counter and swinging his legs back and forth while Taejoon washed dishes. He had fine motor control once again, but he almost didn't care, eagerly awaiting the moment that he would touch something and actually _feel it._ He rinsed a plate under the spray of water, his brain telling him that his hands _should_ feel wet, but they didn't. It was confusing, but soon that wouldn't happen anymore. He would be able to feel normally.

Octavio was reciting some story about how his father had once sued a smaller company for making a copy-cat of one of Silva Pharmaceuticals' drugs, apparently much more knowledgeable about court and law than Taejoon had initially thought. He finished washing this morning's dishes and set the plates out to dry, wiping his hands on a yellow towel with a rubber ducky on it.

He glanced over his shoulder to see Octavio gesticulating wildly, exaggerating his story. His boyfriend soon noticed him staring and asked, "What?"

"Can I touch you?"

"Go ahead."

Taejoon stepped between Octavio's spread legs and the other responded by wrapping his arms around his neck, something he hadn't done in a while. He placed his hands slowly, carefully, onto the other's waist, and watched his stomach flutter, either ticklish or nervous. He imagined being able to feel the other's skin beneath his touch, wondered if it would be soft or rough, mild or warm. He knew he wouldn't need to imagine for long, because today, Fawkes would return and give him his feeling back, and he felt impatient, eager.

(But what if he feels how much he's hurt Octavio, too?)

"What'cha thinking about?" His boyfriend asked, drawing his gaze up from his fluttering stomach to meet the other's eyes.

"You," Taejoon said, for the express purpose of flustering him.

"Huh," Octavio said, cocking his head to the side. "I was hoping that you were thinking about how awesome our life was supposed to be right about now."

"What do you mean?"

"Dude, I was supposed to be a _celebrity,_ remember? But then everyone started thinking that I was dead!" Octavio let out a huff of dramatic breath before tightening his arms around Taejoon's neck. He was tempted to close the distance between them, kiss Octavio on his pretty mouth, but held back, instead taking in the line of his throat and jaw, pining for a sense of normalcy.

"We'll get our lives back, though," Octavio continued, and he tore his eyes away from the other's throat. "Just sucks that we have to go back to Psamathe to do it."

"If this works," he responded. _If your father doesn't try to kill me. If I don't get caught. If he doesn't take you away from me._

_(If you don't leave me.)_

Octavio reached his hand back to boop him lightly on his nose, breaking him out of his feelings of self-resentment, and said,

"It will, cariño. It has to."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> school is draining me of everything i have i forgot how much of a black hole it was to me and my creativity
> 
> anyways ! originally i had this set up so that rampart would repair taejoons arm because i was RLY hoping she was from gaea but it felt contrived and also i havent played her yet because im grounded till graduation so i dont have a good grasp on her personality 😔
> 
> anyways hope u guys liked this one ! this chapter was rly hard for me to write bc of school just making me Exhausted so it ended up not being too long ;__; love u !


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hewwo! sorry if any of this chapter seems rushed i wrote a majority of it under the impression that my power could go out for like 5 weeks thanks to this hurricane but it swerved around us so ;w;
> 
> also so theres no confusion, this chapter occasionally jumps between the present time and the days leading up to it a couple of times!
> 
> tws:  
> mention of vomiting  
> small mention of weight gain  
> mention of maternal death

Taejoon had nearly forgotten how busy the subways of Suotamo could get.

After months of riding in the back of a luxury car with a chauffeur, standing in the middle of a crowded subway station felt like a return to form—sure, he had ridden a few trains back on Psamathe, but that had been few and far between, and ultimately there weren’t that many people because of the rich population who preferred their private drivers.

Psamathe also had lots of its citizens living in concentrated areas—either on the beaches or in three inland cities, with not that many people elsewhere due to its geography and reliance on imported goods. There was less traffic going into Olympus because of it, the complete opposite of Gaea, with its thousands of miles of farmland, suburbs, and smaller towns.

Taejoon remembered reading somewhere that nearly a million people commuted to Suotamo every day for work, school, tourism, or day-trips, and he was reminded of this as he and Octavio slowly descended the steps that led down to the subway, following closely behind a couple trying to get their baby’s stroller down carefully, as there weren’t very many accessibility options on this side of town.

Taejoon wanted to offer help, but he was trying to be as discreet as possible, wearing a gray parka, black turtleneck, and faded jeans. Octavio was in a similar outfit—a forest green windbreaker, black t-shirt beneath, and jeans as well. 

Octavio had complained about having to wear jackets in this heat, but they needed something with hoods. Taejoon was also wearing a baseball cap, the same one with the old Apex logo on it, but the fur from his parka also covered up a good portion of his face as well without having to go the extra mile with a mask. They wouldn't stand out much either because weren’t the only people wearing jackets; it was amazing how humans could face such hot weather and still decide to wear a hoodie out.

It was especially hot down in the subway, what with all of the people swarming inside, packed like sardines. He had grabbed the sleeve of Octavio’s windbreaker, keeping a tight grip as they were pushed forward by people on their way to work. 

It was weird, being able to feel the material of it between his fingers—he’d gotten so freaked out by being able to feel things that he had kept his hands firmly in his pockets for the whole day, fingers twitching involuntarily because of the wind, or every time he accidentally brushed them against passerby. That wasn’t even getting started on the _weight_ he felt over him because of the jacket—whereas before he only had the slight notion that he was wearing clothes, now, he could really feel them weighing down on him, brushing against the metal of his body.

Fawkes had chipped him the day before—normally this chip would go between his shoulder blades, but because of his unique situation, it was at the base of his neck instead, right above where metal transitioned to skin.

The receptors not only gave feelings to his arms and hands, but most of his torso as well, though the feeling got more muted the further down he got to his legs. Fawkes had wanted to recommend him another person to take apart his legs and add receptors there as well, but he had declined, already overwhelmed by the feeling of Mystik’s plush couch beneath his fingertips.

( _“As for your face, there’s not much I can do,” Fawkes had said. “That’s your actual skin tissue, which requires surgery. You can still feel there anyways, right?”_

_“I can,” Taejoon said, running his index finger beneath his right eye, and nearly flinching at the feeling of his skin, which felt revolting, somehow. “It’s just that the area around my eye feels more numb than the rest.”_

_“You’re going to have to see an actual doctor about that, I’m afraid.”_

_“Hey, as long as he can feel when I do this, everything’s fine,” Octavio quipped, and then pressed a kiss to Taejoon’s cheek, causing him to become flustered, and he ducked to hide his face from view._ )

The two of them stood in line for the turnstiles, both holding prepaid MetroCards in their hands as the dozens of people in front of them went through the machines in waves. Octavio complained about the line too, but that soon died down, as it went a lot faster than he had apparently thought it would. _Everyone_ was in a rush here.

“Man, this is _nothing_ like how I imagined it," Octavio sighed dramatically.

“What were you expecting, exactly?”

“I dunno. Underground trains sound cooler on paper.”

He had forgotten that it would be Octavio’s first time riding on the subway—all of the trains were above-ground back on Psamathe. He didn't consider the notion of riding the subway to be all that exciting, but his boyfriend clearly thought it would be.

“Why don’t all of these people just drive?” Octavio asked, standing on his tiptoes to look over the heads of all the people, but he was too short to really manage it.

“Cars are more expensive,” Taejoon answered.

“No they aren’t. Paying to use the train every day costs a lot.”

“In the short-term, yes, but insurance and gas prices are more-” Taejoon’s mouth snapped shut as an armed police officer suddenly joined the crowd, stepping around the people in line to take his place beside the turnstiles. He knew that he was likely there to make sure no one hopped over them, but he felt as if the officer’s eyes had already found him through the mass of people.

Octavio glanced back at him, having noticed his sudden silence as Taejoon stared sullenly ahead, trying to give the officer no reason to look in their direction. He kept his head bowed a little, making sure that the majority of his face was covered either by his hat or furry collar as paranoia flared up inside of him.

Having seen himself on billboards countless times already, he was afraid of any sort of recognition, but he didn’t really want to wear a face mask because then it would become obvious that he was trying to hide his appearance. Despite this, his fingers curled around the mask stuffed inside his pocket, wondering if he should put it on after all as they got closer to the officer.

He inhaled shakily, imagining that if he could feel his heart, if he _had_ one, it would be thundering against the metal of his chest right now, and pumping ice through his veins. His feet wanted to remain firmly planted on the ground, but he was soon jostled forward, shoulders hunching inward at the sudden contact and feeling.

“I heard that public affection makes people uncomfortable,” Octavio told him in a low voice as they got closer. “Maybe if we kiss as we go through, he won’t look at us.”

“First of all, you didn’t hear that, you got that from _Captain America,_ " Taejoon murmured out of the corner of his mouth, still staring straight ahead. "Second, we’re not doing that.”

Octavio pouted up at him as they kept walking forward. “My dearest boyfriend Hyeon, are you implying that you don’t want to kiss me?”

Hearing Octavio call him that name made him unwillingly pout right back, glancing over at the other.

“No, it’s just-”

“I can’t believe this. After all we’ve been through, you don’t want to make out with me in public.”

“No, I just don’t want to draw attention to us."

"Why? You scared?"

"I'm just..."

“No need to worry!” Octavio cut him off brightly. Taejoon realized that it was now their turn to walk through the turnstiles, and that they had passed by the officer several seconds ago. “Distracting you is so _easy._ ”

They slid their cards through the scanners and walked down yet another flight of stairs, Taejoon once again holding on to Octavio’s sleeve, afraid to lose him in the crowd. They had another five minutes until their train came, waiting behind a marked blue line with several other tired-looking people.

Two kids standing about five feet away from them were bent over a small gaming console, and an older woman was carefully knitting a scarf to their right. Nobody was paying any attention to them, so Octavio turned to face Taejoon once again while they waited.

“You need to chill,” his boyfriend said. His black hair, normally combed back lazily, was getting too long to stay that way. Several strands stuck out against his forehead, falling into his eyes. Taejoon raised his hand slowly to see if the other would flinch away, and when he didn’t, brushed his hair out of his face.

“You need a haircut,” he remarked, reveling in the soft feeling of it beneath his touch. He could only handle it for a few seconds, though; every time he touched something he eventually reached a point where he thought to himself, _has hair_ always _felt like that?_ before drawing his hand quickly away, as if he had been burned.

This time he kept combing his fingers through Octavio’s hair, even though it was starting to make him shudder a little, the texture and feeling of the strands brushing against his—

“ _Now arriving: A-train...please stand behind the blue line..._ ”

“That’s us,” Octavio said, and then stepped around Taejoon to join him behind the blue line. He buried his hands inside his jacket pockets once again, a shiver crawling up his spine from the sensation of it all. Fawkes had told him it’d take a while to get used to it, and he’d doubted him at first—after all, he’d spent most of his life with feeling than without. He’d realized, though, that the other man was right; it all felt so foreign to him, so new and strange. 

He didn’t really like that he felt that way. It made him feel inhuman again.

The train began clearing out of people who got off at this stop, and then he and Octavio stepped inside. There were no empty seats, and it just got even more crowded as other people joined them. Taejoon raised his hand to grip one of the handholds in the ceiling, while Octavio leaned against a pole, half-hugging it so that he didn’t have to touch it with his bare hands.

The plan was to go somewhere to call Kishou, using a cheap, prepaid phone—somewhere busy, so that its location could not be precisely honed in on—abandon the phone, and then head to the safe house. They couldn’t return to the orphanage once Kishou was made aware of Taejoon’s identity, because that would give the authorities good reason to storm it; they would have to remain in the safe house while they figured out their next step. 

The train rumbled around corners sharply, Octavio giving a delighted little smile with every jolt. The trains on Psamathe were much smoother, and their speed wasn’t so noticeable because of it—here though, every rumble and shudder of the train just seemed to make his boyfriend’s grin widen, clearly having the time of his life. A few people even gave him weird looks.

They slowed to a stop, and a couple of people got off, but three times that amount boarded. Taejoon shuffled back to allow more room, and flinched suddenly when he felt something press against his back. Head jerking violently to the side, he realized that he had been backed against the wall, which made him feel a little anxious. It only got worse when the train started moving again, and the rumbling against his back made his shoulders hunch uncomfortably.

It then got a hundred times worse when Octavio, having shuffled backwards as well and no longer had such a steady grip on his pole, leaned against Taejoon as the train’s speed picked up, his back pressing against his front. His ass was perfectly aligned with Taejoon’s hips, weighing down on them, and oh this was the worst. This was the _actual_ worst.

Octavio probably didn’t even realize it, having done it countless times because Taejoon couldn’t actually feel anything, but now he _could_ and he was about to go fucking insane. Standing up straighter, he ended up unbalancing Octavio, before hooking his arm around his waist to keep him from stumbling, and also keeping him far, _far_ away from his front.

“What gives?” Octavio complained.

“Don’t ask,” Taejoon replied, sure that his face was a deep red.

They got off two stops later, Taejoon glad to escape the feeling of people brushing shoulders with him and the train rumbling against his back. They went back up to street-level, joining a crowd of people heading to work, before quickly ducking into an alleyway that Jordan had scouted out for them—devoid of security cameras, with the building to the left being abandoned and the building to the right being an internet café, guaranteed to make tracking their location all the more harder. It was perfect, really.

But Octavio still hesitated as he stared at the cheap phone in his hands, thumb hovering over the little numbers. Taejoon waited for him patiently, hood pulled over his head and occasionally glancing discreetly to the left and right to make sure that nobody was coming this way. It was early morning for them, so it was evening over on Psamathe, around dinner time, so Kishou wouldn’t be busy; they’d chosen this time exactly for that reason.

He watched Octavio glance between his own phone and the cheap one, typing out his father’s number at a painstakingly slow pace, before he spoke up.

“Are you okay?”

“Yup,” Octavio said, voice cracking a little, and he watched the other man flinch. “It’s just. Been a while.”

“I know.” Taejoon gave him a level stare, crossing his arms and shifting his weight onto his other foot. “But you’re the only one who can call him.”

“Yeah, but-” Octavio took a deep breath, sounding a little bit irritated. “It feels like we just went through all that only to immediately go back.”

“I’m not happy about it either,” Taejoon told him, and Octavio bit on his lower lip, leaving him to fight back a wave of guilt at the fact that the other had to do this because of him. “I understand how you feel. I’m sorry you have to go through this.”

Octavio slid his phone back into his pocket, and Taejoon held his hand out slowly, offering it to the other. His boyfriend stared at his metal fingers, like he was debating something, before he slowly slid his hand into Taejoon’s, as if shy.

He’d never noticed how much the other man's hands trembled, from either pent-up energy or anxiety, he wasn’t sure. He traced his finger lightly over the scars on the inside of his palm from years of racing and other dangerous activities, keeping his gaze steady with Octavio's. He brushed his thumb over his knuckles, and caught the minute shudder that went through the other with his touch, still not breaking eye contact as he tried to silently assure him, _I'm here._

Octavio gave a little quick exhale, before closing his eyes and hitting the ‘call’ button. Taejoon raised his boyfriend’s hand to brush his lips lightly over his wrist, mumbling out a quiet “ _gomawo._ ”

“What’s that?”

“Thank you.”

Octavio blinked at him as the phone rang between them, his fingers curling against Taejoon's palm. “I’ve never heard you speak Korean.”

“I couldn’t speak it until recently,” Taejoon admitted. He’d been so in the habit of jumping between Spanish and English without thinking about it that once he’d had his ability to speak Korean restored to him, it didn’t feel so natural anymore—which felt like yet another thing _they_ had taken away from him. He felt like he had to be more conscious when speaking Korean, picking his words carefully and deliberately, whereas before all of this he could seamlessly switch between his two main languages without pause.

Octavio opened his mouth, eyes alight with something—perhaps he wanted to ask Taejoon to speak some more—when the ringing stopped, and a tinny voice answered with, “ _Dígame.”_

Taejoon watched his boyfriend’s face instantly scrunch up at that, before holding the phone up to his ear. A few seconds of silence passed, as Octavio seemed to be searching for his words. Taejoon moved a little closer to him, bending over a little so that he could hear Kishou as well—the man repeated his greeting, sounding a little annoyed this time.

Staring at their hands still clasped together, Taejoon gave a light squeeze, and Octavio finally settled on, “Papá?”

Realizing that they would likely be having most of this conversation in Spanish and that Taejoon wouldn’t be able to understand a word of it, he leaned away to give the other some space, but not before hearing Kishou utter in shock, “ _...Octavio?_ ”

* * *

Octavio had spent the past five minutes with his face pressed to the window, watching through the curtains as two smiling women moved him and Taejoon’s things discreetly into the back of their unmarked truck. They were apparently friends of Mystik’s, and had no qualms at all about doing suspicious favors like this; this, plus Fawkes and the general _everything_ about this orphanage, made Octavio wonder if Mystik was running a crime ring.

“Why do you guys have to leave?” A voice asked, and Octavio glanced back from his spot on Mystik’s armchair to see Carter standing there. 

His face was sour and he was wearing a frayed gray hoodie, the little cords on the front showing signs of having been chewed on. Octavio stood to his full height, reveling in the fact that he was several inches taller than the other. Yeah, sure, Carter was a literal child, but Octavio liked feeling big.

“I don’t see why you have to go,” Carter grumbled, and Octavio rolled his eyes at that, which just made the kid's face sour even more.

“You weren’t expecting us to stay here _forever_ , were you?”

“A little bit,” Carter said honestly, and Octavio stared at him. “You’re too old to get adopted and leave.”

“I don’t think you understand how adulthood works. No offense, compadre."

Carter squinted at him judgmentally, before saying, “I do too. Jordan says that when we turn eighteen we don’t _have_ to leave. We can stay here forever.”

“I mean, if you guys want to be stuck here, sure.” Octavio shrugged, before realizing that he should probably be kinder with the way he worded things. He sometimes forgot that he was one of the only adults in this place, the exact opposite of back at home, where he’d been the youngest, and had always been treated like a child because of it. It was a little hard adjusting to the knowledge that _he_ was now the _‘responsible adult’_ among a dozen children.

“I don’t want you to leave,” the boy said, and stared hard down at his tennis shoes. “You’re one of my only friends.”

Octavio couldn’t help it; he laughed in the other's face. “You barely even know me.”

Carter didn’t respond, lips pressing together, and Octavio realized with a dawning sense of dread that the other was starting to tear up. “I m-mean, uh, look—I had fun here, but _chico,_ Tae and I have unfinished business, okay? Do you want him to live in hiding forever?”

“N-no, but...” Carter raised his hoodie sleeve up to his eyes, wiping furiously, before taking a deep breath and saying, “Nobody likes me. I thought _you_ did.”

Octavio raised his hand and patted the younger on his shoulder, still feeling a little panicked by his sniffles, and said, “Of course I like you! _Everybody_ likes you!”

Carter shook his head vehemently at that. “Everyone else says I’m too weird to hang out with them.”

“Kids are mean, what can I say?”

“Whatever,” Carter mumbled, jerking his shoulder out from beneath Octavio’s touch and throwing his hood over his head. “Everyone always leaves me, anyway. First my mom, then you. I’m used to it.”

The boy stomped away from him then, slamming Mystik’s apartment door shut behind him. Octavio sighed a little—man, kids stressed him out. He felt kind of bad, though, especially since he knew where the other was coming from. He’d heard the story; Jordan’s mother had had Carter, and they’d been a happy little family until one day, when Carter was about four years old and Jordan eight, she’d packed her bags and left the two of them alone, unable to be contacted when the authorities found them three days later.

Octavio could somewhat relate, though he knew that their situations were fundamentally different; his mother hadn’t wanted him for most of her pregnancy, and had died during childbirth. Carter and Jordan’s mother had actively made the decision to leave the both of them behind, and he wondered how much that affected the two. Obviously Carter hated the thought of people leaving him, which...

Maybe they had more in common than he’d thought, even if it pained him to admit it.

He'd probably hung out with Carter the most in his time at the orphanage—the kid was always up here, eating ice-cream or fiddling with little metal contraptions that could probably take someone’s fingers off if handled wrong. He never really played with the other kids, always content to play video games by himself or stay up in Mystik’s apartment, doing god knows what. A lot of the time, it was bothering Octavio by climbing into the attic—and he said bothered, but he _did_ like spending time with him, even if he didn’t exactly understand when he wanted to be left alone.

He thought back to all the times Carter had passionately launched into rants about math, or kicked Octavio's ass at video games, or shared some of his precious ice-cream with him, and thought that yeah. Maybe he was going to miss the guy.

Octavio pulled out his phone, thinking it over for a couple more seconds, before sighing and following Carter out of the apartment. The younger didn’t hang out with anyone else, so it was relatively easy to find him, playing his handheld console on the top bunk of he and Jordan’s bed. When Carter noticed him he scowled and tried pulling his blanket over his head, but Octavio stood up on his tiptoes and grabbed it, yanking it down.

"Man, why?!" Carter yowled.

“C’mon amigo, I’m trying to be nice here!" Octavio waved his phone around so that he could see. "Look, I’m not leaving you. I’m going to give you my phone number, and then you can text me whenever you want. Just make sure your sister and Mystik don’t find out, okay?”

Carter stared down at him, eyes squinted in suspicion, before asking, “Aren’t I going to get in trouble?”

“Do you care?”

“Not really.” And with that, Carter pulled his own phone out of his hoodie pocket, suddenly in a much better mood. They exchanged phone numbers, Octavio unable to believe that a literal child was his new best friend. Well, his adult best friend thought he was dead, so this was his best and only other option, for now.

God, kids were exhausting.

“...Thanks,” Carter said when they’d finished, and Octavio beamed at him.

“I know how it feels to be left alone, buddy. By the way, I like your hair.”

Carter grinned at him slowly, before shaking his braids out in response. “Jordan says I’m gonna get a lot of girls like this.”

“Hell yeah, dude. I bet when you go to school tomorrow, everyone’s gonna say you’re the cutest guy around.”

“I’ll text you when that happens.” Carter narrowed his eyes a little then. “And you’ll text _me_ , right?”

“Of course.”

“Pinky promise?”

Octavio held up his hand, pinky finger raised, and felt a little embarrassment at the fact that Carter’s own pinky finger was nearly the same size as his. _Are my hands really_ that _small?_ “Pinky promise.”

“Okay,” Carter said, before flopping back down on his bed. “Now go kiss your boyfriend or something.”

“Hey, I’m an adult. You can’t talk to me like that.” Octavio marched out of Carter’s room as haughtily as he could, hearing the other giggle behind him . “Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go kiss my boyfriend, or something.”

* * *

Somehow, miraculously, the call went...fine.

Octavio had spoken over the phone with his father for several minutes in low, rapid Spanish, mentioning Taejoon’s full name several times, which made him bristle a little bit as he kept his eyes peeled for anyone who got too close to their little alley. When his boyfriend had finished he’d chucked the phone into the huge dumpster beside them and grabbed Taejoon’s hand, startling him a little with the sensation as he was pulled out onto the street.

“Where’s the house?” Octavio asked, and that was the last thing he said until they got there. He remained silent for the whole ride on the C-train, having managed to secure a seat before it could be taken up by someone else. Taejoon stood up for half the ride, and then managed to get his own seat beside his boyfriend when a pregnant woman got up and left. He glanced over at Octavio, who was biting on his nails, an unfortunate habit that he was slowly trying to break the other out of.

He raised his hand to lightly touch the other's wrist, guiding his fingers away from Octavio’s mouth. Taejoon had never realized how gentle he was with Octavio; he’d always thought that he must accidentally be roughing the other man whenever he took hold of his hands or waist, unable to feel how much pressure he was truly applying, but to his surprise he realized that he had always been careful with his touch, much more careful than he'd thought possible.

While packing their things the other day he had kept mindlessly touching Octavio as he normally would, either by placing a hand on his hip as he squeezed by him to reach for something or by trying to help him fold his clothes, something the man still struggled with. Taejoon realized that this whole time he had been gentle with his boyfriend, which gave him some small comfort, at least.

He laced his fingers with his boyfriend's, trying to discourage him from biting again, and watched the lights outside the train windows flash by as the seat rumbled beneath him, an uncomfortable sensation against the back of his thighs.

The train soon came to a stuttering halt, and Taejoon murmured quietly, “This is us.”

When they arrived at street level, they were faced with the more industrial side of town. Guiding themselves beneath ladders and past half-finished construction sites, Taejoon counted down the numbered buildings, turning corners only to reveal another layer of buildings to wander past.

They eventually found the one Mystik had given them the address for; a shoddy, run-down apartment building that looked to be on the verge of collapse, its paint peeling and the sidewalk in front of it little more than a mess of rubble.

They climbed up to the second floor, Taejoon pulling the key he’d been given out of his pocket, and then opening up the door. The apartment was nothing special: a barely-furnished thing with mold stains on the wall and cobwebs in the corner. A broom rested against the couch next to a pile of trash that someone had swept up but hadn’t taken out. The fridge was humming, but the air was stale, so power had only been on for a couple of days, at most.

He watched his boyfriend's nose snub a little at this, knowing that the other was used to far more lavish conditions. This place made Mystik's attic look like a castle.

“Home sweet home,” Octavio said sarcastically, and he chose not to respond to that.

“What did your father say?” Taejoon asked, getting right to the point. He studied his boyfriend’s face, trying to decipher the emotions that flickered across it all in the span of a few seconds, before he let out a little _psh_ between his teeth and said,

“He’s got a guy here who can take us to Psamathe tomorrow.”

“...And that was it? What did you tell him?”

“That I was alive, I was with you, you were a wanted criminal but it’s okay because you’re innocent and he’s right about the cyborg thing, and also we need help clearing your name to get back at Hammond.”

“Did he _believe_ you?” He had no idea how Octavio could have communicated so many important details within that five-minute conversation, and the doubts and paranoia he’d been pushing to the back of his mind were making their return already as he stared inquiringly at the other.

“Maybe?” Octavio frowned, and Taejoon felt frustrated with this answer. “He thought I was a prank caller at first and started yelling at me.”

Running his hand through his hair as he began to pace back and forth, Taejoon tried to calm himself down. This was all too vague for his own comfort, and Octavio wasn't giving him many details to work with. He repeated his earlier question, and the other man huffed out in annoyance.

“I didn’t memorize the whole conversation, ‘Joon.”

“This is important.”

“Yeah, but trust me, I think we should be good.”

“Octavio, I said this is _important_ ,” Taejoon snapped at him, and instantly regretted it when his boyfriend scowled, folding his arms across his chest in response. He hated himself for being so quick to anger, and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I just...I need a little more than _we should be good,_ okay?”

“...Okay,” Octavio mumbled, scuffing the swept floors with his shoe, before finally glancing back up to meet his eyes. “Basically, he’s going to hear you out, and decide what to do. He just wants me to come back and like...be all public about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, publicly announce my return, so that everyone knows Hammond lied.” Octavio shrugged his shoulders a little nonchalantly. “That’s really all he told me. He’d hear you out, but he wants me to come home first and tell everyone I’m alive.”

Taejoon sat down on the edge of the lonely white couch in the middle of the living room, covered in a plastic wrap to prevent dust. He pondered this, wondering if this was going to be a smart move on their behalf. What if Kishou was lying about hearing him out, and merely wanted Octavio back so he could be used as a pawn in his public campaign against Hammond? Or, what if Kishou genuinely wanted to listen to his story, to decide if Taejoon could be used as a pawn as well?

What would happen once Taejoon stopped being useful? What will Kishou do to him if he decides he’s not worth bringing into the matter, and the fact that Hammond had lied about his son dying was enough to use against them? What if he, in fact, blamed Taejoon for this, accused him of being an HR spy, and then...

Paranoid, Taejoon sprung back to his feet and approached the window, peeking through the blinds down into the street to see if they had been followed here. He didn't see anyone suspicious, but he kept staring, faced with the horrible, dawning sensation that everything was about to go _wrong._

“Baby,” Octavio said, and that pet name made him jerk a little in surprise, turning to face the other. “Whoa, okay, is that not good?”

It was hard for him to find his voice as he stepped away from the window. “Wh-what’s not...”

“Me calling you baby. I was just testing it out.”

“...No, it was fine.” _Welcome, even_.

“Nice." Octavio smiled up at him in a way that was almost sweet as Taejoon sat back down on the couch, nerves somewhat settled. "So when do _I_ get a cute nickname?”

“Now’s not really the time for me to think of a cute nickname for you,” Taejoon sighed, and Octavio plopped down beside him, nose scrunching at the terrible crinkling sound it came with. “We need to decide if we’re going to go through with this after all.”

“Of course we are!” Octavio said, as if he were stupid. “This is the best-case scenario, man! My dad could’ve told me to fuck off and leave you behind!”

Taejoon frowned at him, seeing that the other wasn’t going to do much to assuage his worries. He knew that Octavio wouldn’t try to put him in any danger, and that the man himself was reluctant to go back to Psamathe in the first place, but still, he couldn’t help but worry and fear every possible outcome. There were too many unknown factors, and he was almost starting to regret this plan.

Almost. But not quite.

He remembered feeling Octavio’s skin for the first time, running his fingers lightly over his arm—eyes wide at the warmth, the softness, the realness of it all. His hand had dipped lower, onto Octavio’s thigh to feel the firmness of his muscles there, before his fingers jumped to the other’s stomach and tickled across his abs, which had been somewhat defined back on Psamathe, but his boyfriend had gained a little bit of weight since coming to Gaea.

“I know,” Octavio had joked, though his cheeks were a little pink at the contact, sitting on his bed and letting Taejoon touch him, reminiscent of that one night so long ago. “My abs are gone. I know this is the only reason you date me. Sorry for disappointing you.”

Taejoon hadn’t responded, too intensely focused on the sensation of the other beneath him—another reminder of what they had taken from him, this ability to feel Octavio beneath him. Sure, the other man occasionally touched his face, and he could feel things then, but it wasn’t the same as being able to reach out and touch Octavio on his own. Wasn’t the same as being able to feel the keys beneath his fingers as he worked on his computer, wasn’t the same as being able to feel the water around him when he went to the pool with the kids. 

They’d taken so much from him, and he just wanted all of it back. He wanted to make them pay for what they’d done, and the chance to expose them to the Outlands and drain them of all their finances and public support...he wanted to take it.

“What did he say about picking us up?” Taejoon sighed, and Octavio grinned a little.

“He’s got a buddy over here who can fly us privately to Psamathe.”

“And that doesn’t seem suspicious at all to you?”

“Not really. It’s gonna be one guy versus a cyborg and me. We could take him out, no problem.”

Taejoon snorted a little, leg bouncing involuntarily as he thought it over some more. He could tell Octavio was getting a little impatient, waiting for him to speak, so he suggested that the other grab something to eat out of the fridge while Taejoon made his decision.

His boyfriend obliged, but not before pausing and pressing a kiss to Taejoon’s forehead in a gesture that left him flustered.

“Trust me, cariño. I don't want to hurt you anymore."

* * *

“I can’t believe you’re leaving right as I get promoted to cheer captain,” Jordan chided good-naturedly as she loaded a case of water into the back of Mystik’s truck. She was going to the ballpark with some of the kids, having saved up money from her job as a dog-walker for months. “I think you hate me.”

“I’ve seen enough of your routines to get the general idea," Taejoon said, helping her load up the truck beneath the Gaean sun.

“Yeah, but you’ve seen me do them with Lindsay and Amir and Ryo. That’s not the same as a team of professionals, y’know?”

He smiled beneath his face mask as Lindsay, having overheard this, rounded on Jordan and glared at her.

“What? It’s true!” Jordan said defensively, lifting the tailgate of the truck.

“I hate you,” Lindsay said dramatically, before stomping off back inside the orphanage.

“Kids, amirite?” Jordan joked, but her smile quickly faded into something a little more serious. She glanced around, as if making sure no one was looking in their direction, before taking Taejoon’s arm and pulling him to the side, out of the way of the bustling kids. She dragged him into the building, as he was only supposed to be out for a minute or two anyways, before rounding on him.

Taejoon raised an eyebrow, staring at her questioningly as she said, “Look, I know how hard it was to get back here, alright? You guys had a tough time.”

“Don’t remind me,” Taejoon mumbled, staring down at his flexing fingers, the shame constantly bubbling inside of him making itself known again.

“Well, I don’t feel alright with you just waltzing into enemy territory unprepared.” Jordan lifted her leg up so that her knee was at her chest, fishing around in her sneaker, before pulling out a little black object. She pressed a button, and the object revealed itself to be a knife. 

A switchblade.

“Here, take this. Just in case.”

“How’d you get this?” Taejoon asked, taking it into his hands and pushing the knife back in with his finger. Though he could feel the metal of the blade, he didn’t necessarily feel how sharp it was, which was good, he supposed. He had stolen a similar knife from one of his foster parents back in middle school, though he’d lost it at some point.

“A friend of a friend.” Jordan smiled at him with her non-answer, before adding, “It would just make me feel better if you guys went in ready to fight back."

Taejoon pressed the button to pop the blade out before pushing it back in again. It was simple, not as flashy as the butterfly knife Octavio had had back at home, and he could efficiently hide it in his pocket. Placing it into the back of his jeans for now, he looked back at Jordan, and mumbled quietly, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Just don’t tell Mystik I gave it to you.” Jordan smiled. "Have you said goodbye to her yet?"

"I don't think she wants to see me right now," Taejoon admitted, finally reaching up to peel the mask off of his face. It seemed like every time he'd tried talking to her these past couple of days she'd either made excuses not to or just flat-out ignored him. It hurt quite a bit, but he understood why; he had hurt her.

( _Why do you always fuck up?_

 _Why do you always hurt the people you_ _love?_ )

Jordan gave him a knowing look, before throwing her arms around him, a move that left him feeling surprised.

She was only a couple of inches shorter than him, and managed to lift him off the ground in a move that made him squawk with both surprise and embarrassment. She then set him back down on his feet, and grinned at him. “I don’t have anything for loverboy, but I’m sure you’ll protect him just fine.”

“He can protect himself,” Taejoon said, lips quirking up a little to match her good nature. “He can talk the ear off of anyone who hurts him. And I gave him Mila’s old pepper spray yesterday.”

They both stared at each other after that, Mila’s name left hanging in the air. Jordan had never been very close with him before he left the orphanage, but she’d basically been Mila’s best friend— they'd always talked to one another before she had moved out with him, and he knew he wasn't the only one who felt her loss.

He opened his mouth to ask something, but decided against it, and snapped it back shut.

Jordan answered his unasked question for him anyways:

“I’m not gonna stop looking for her, man. When you’re gone, I’m going to do everything I can to find her.”

“...Thank you,” he said appreciatively, and Jordan winked at him.

“Stay safe out there, alright?”

“Alright.”

“And make sure to use protection.”

“Why would I—” He coughed. "I don’t even have-”

Jordan laughed in his face. “I know, I’m messin’ with you. I was talking about the knife."

Taejoon rolled his eyes as he brushed past her, intending to go back upstairs. "And you wonder why I’m leaving this place behind.”

“Hey!"

* * *

The journey to Psamathe took about a week.

One whole week of Taejoon ruminating over this whole thing, one week of him bouncing between wanting to make a break for it as soon as they landed or taking his chances with Kishou. One week spent with his switchblade beneath his pillow as he slept, waiting for Kishou’s pilot friend to try and do something to him while he was vulnerable.

He startled awake several times a night, convinced that the man was standing over him, but each time it turned out to be his eyes playing tricks on him and he had difficulty falling asleep afterwards. It didn't help that the constant vibration of the dropship often left him feeling overstimulated, not used to the constant _everything_ after so much _nothing._

Their pilot was an elderly man who was half-deaf and shouted at them when he spoke, not because he was angry, but because he couldn’t hear himself speak. His co-pilot was much younger and had a head full of purple hair that had clearly been dyed countless times, as it seemed a little stiff and lifeless. 

“I like your hair,” Octavio had told them, and they’d just given him a silent thumbs-up. They didn’t seem to speak much, which made Taejoon wonder how they got along with the old man.

The dropship was smaller than the one they’d taken to Gaea, but it was a lot sleeker and a lot more...rich people-y. The inside was white and gold, with a chandelier overhead and large windows to view the skies. There was champagne stocked in the kitchen and recipes for hors d'oeuvres tacked to the fridge.

“Normally I fly commercial, but I owe a favor to your dad,” the old man had loudly told them as they carried their things onboard, Taejoon’s hand in his pocket and gripping the handle of his switchblade.

They’d used a cab to reach this location, driven out to the middle of nowhere, miles past the port they’d originally landed at. There was a huge spot of dirt that told him the dropship regularly landed here, and he wondered how true the claim about him flying commercial was.

Then again, he couldn’t see a reason why the interior would be so fancy if it was just for the old man by himself. He wouldn’t get to enjoy it, as the pilot—unless there was an autopilot feature that Taejoon didn’t know about...

“I can hear you thinking from here,” Octavio said on the third night aboard, splayed across his bed. They still weren’t sleeping together, a silent agreement they’d reached. Taejoon had thought that they were getting a lot better, but he noticed that Octavio seemed to flinch a lot more than he had previously. He wondered just how awful his last experience on a dropship must have been for him to act like this.

“Sorry,” Taejoon mumbled against the couch pillow, curled up a little because of his height. “I can’t help it.”

“Chill.”

“Are _you_ chill?”

“Of course I am,” Octavio said, but Taejoon felt like this was a lie. His boyfriend kept biting his nails or scratching them along his thighs, either because he was nervous about returning home or being on the dropship or both. He had reached a hand out earlier to offer him a form of comfort, but he noticed the way the man had eyed his fingers, untrusting, which had hurt, but he understood. The other wasn’t in the best place right now.

Neither was Taejoon, for that matter. He was paranoid that the old man—whom they’d been instructed to call Maccoy—would come in and hurt either he or Octavio, that Kishou had wanted them to be drawn out of hiding so that he could kidnap his boyfriend and kill Taejoon for good.

Some part of him knew that he was being irrational, and another part of him knew that he was also completely justified in this fear.

He could feel Maccoy's eyes on him constantly, and he kept the knife Jordan had given to him on his person at all times because of it, knowing that should they be attacked, he’d at least be prepared to fight back.

On their fifth day, Taejoon was wandering around the top deck of the dropship, trying to avoid looking at the mass of stars before them, because they made him dizzy. He was running his hand along the gilded gold of the handrails, feeling the smooth metal, an odd sensation to feel what with his own metal hands.

He came to a sudden stop when he heard someone climbing up the stairs. Maccoy had distinct footsteps—one normal _thump,_ and then a loud _clunk_ that spoke of an old wooden leg. He looked to the right and withdrew his hand from the handrail, unsure if he would be told off for touching everything, when Maccoy’s lined face popped into view, his salt-and-pepper beard reminding Taejoon of the stereotypical old fishermen you see in movies.

“Well, then,” Maccoy said (more of a shout), and Taejoon slid his hand back into his pocket. “Been wonderin’ why I’ve got a wanted criminal on my ship.”

“Did Mr. Silva not tell you the details?” Taejoon asked coolly, taking a slow step backward, hoping that the other wouldn’t notice his evasiveness.

He was already starting to panic— _what if he’s alerted the authorities already? Is there a warrant for his arrest? A reward? Did Maccoy decide to turn him in?_

“Calm your tits, kid, I don’t care,” Maccoy grumbled, waving a leathery hand around carelessly. “I just want to make sure you’re not going to blow up my ship.”

“I was framed,” Taejoon shot back, knowing that the other must be referring to the incident at the lab. 

“A likely story, but I’m not here to judge.” Maccoy raised his chin in challenge. “That’s between you and God. And Mr. Silva’s lawyers, I suppose.”

Taejoon took another slow step away, fingers still lightly touching the knife in his pocket, but that last bit caught his attention: “You mean Mr. Silva’s already decided to help me?”

“What?” Maccoy asked loudly. Raising his voice, he repeated his question. “Oh, I don’t know, now, do I?”

“But you just said-”

“Bah, I hate kids,” Maccoy said gruffly, shaking his head and turning his back on Taejoon. “Always assuming they know everything. Bah!”

Taejoon watched him walk back down the stairs, his metal leg causing an echo. The older man reminded him of the convenience store owner he and Mila had used to bother all the time. With a roll of his eyes, he went down the stairs as well, and joined Octavio in their room.

“Has he harassed you yet?” Octavio asked from his place on the floor. He was stretching, and had his ankle hooked around his neck. Just looking at him made Taejoon’s body hurt with phantom pains.

“Just by being a typical old man,” Taejoon said dryly, taking his knife out and studying the handle. “Though he did imply that your dad has already decided to help me.”

“Not likely,” Octavio said, before pausing. He then returned to a normal sitting position, body detangling itself in a way that made Taejoon’s stomach squirm. Such displays of flexibility had always left him feeling nauseous. “I guess he could’ve, if he decided it’d be profitable in the long-run.”

There was a pause.

“God, I sound like a businessman, don’t I? Ugh.”

“You said it, not me.”

Octavio scowled at him, before flopping onto the floor, limbs spread out like a starfish. His hair fanned out around him, the longest Taejoon had ever seen it—it hadn’t been cut in several months, not since May. He was going to jokingly offer to cut it for Octavio with the switchblade, but decided not to after remembering how often the other man had flinched away from him recently, eyes glazed and shoulders hunched.

He watched his boyfriend stare up at the ceiling for several minutes, lost in thought, before he said,

“I don’t really want to go back.”

“I know,” Taejoon said, guilt crawling up the back of his neck, but he shook it off, knowing that it was no use to regret it now. Not when they were so close to arriving.

“He’s going to yell at me for leaving.”

“I would hope that he’d be happy to see you,” Taejoon mumbled, but he knew his words sounded empty. He knew he was an outsider looking in on a relationship between two people he’d only known for a little less than a year, and that he didn’t know all of the nuances in it, but...he hoped, for Octavio’s sake, that Kishou would just be glad that he was alive.

Maybe for business reasons, or maybe out of genuine love for his son, but he just wished for his boyfriend to have a safe and sane return to Psamathe, without the dramatics of it all.

“Aw man, y’know what? Adele’s gonna kill me. I bet they found out I used her I.D. to get inside the building.”

...Though that seemed unlikely.

A loud ringing noise sounded through the air, and the two of them flinched, Octavio’s hands jumping to cover his ears as the intercom crackled to life.

“This is your captain speaking,” Maccoy’s voice came through, gruff. “The silence here is driving me nuts, so I’m going to play music. If you complain, I will dump you into the cold vacuum of space.”

A pause.

“My ship, my rules.”

The ringing noise happened again, followed by the quiet start of music that steadily got louder. It sounded tinny, like it was being played from a radio—some old-people music that you’d hear from a jukebox, or something.

“I hate this,” Octavio groaned, before getting to his feet, a bounce in his step. “Hey, do you think the chandelier can support my weight?”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Taejoon said right as a knock came at their door. Knife held steadily in his grip, he opened the door slowly, seeing the purple-haired co-pilot standing outside and holding a plate of food. “Thank you.”

They gave him another thumbs up, before turning slowly away from him and dancing down the hall; gentle sways of their hips and arms raised, clearly enjoying themself. He watched them for a moment before shutting the door behind him, and checking the plate of food. Shrimp tacos that smelled strongly of cilantro and lime. He offered the plate out to Octavio, and asked, “Hungry?”

Octavio looked at the plate, and then back to Taejoon. “Look me in the eyes and ask me that again.”

Blinking in confusion, Taejoon repeated, “Hungry?..”

“Those are shrimp, ‘Joon.”

“What,” Taejoon said, before remembering the other’s severe shellfish allergy, and feeling like an idiot. “Oh.”

Come to think of it, did they even bring an EpiPen with them..? He remembered being told how bad the symptoms for his boyfriend could get—vomiting and trouble breathing. This seemed like a severe oversight. And he’d just offered this to the other without thinking...

“Dumbass,” Octavio snorted, as if reading his mind, before taking the plate of tacos from him and setting it down roughly on their little table.

He then sidled up to Taejoon, leaning heavily against his chest and wrapping his arms around his waist. Taejoon gave him a curious look as the other began swaying a little in time to the music, which definitely didn’t seem to align with his tastes.

“I didn’t know you liked this song,” Taejoon said as he placed his free hand on Octavio’s waist as well, trying to find a groove with him. Truth be told he wasn’t a very good dancer, but swaying side to side couldn’t be very hard. He set his knife down on the table next to the tacos so that he could put both hands on the other.

“I don’t,” Octavio hummed against his chest quietly.

"Then why are we dancing?"

"Because I want to." Octavio's voice cracked a little, and he wondered just how much the man was starting to regret his decision to come home. Taejoon slowly raised his hand, carefully, and placed his fingers on Octavio's jaw, tilting his face up to kiss him on the bridge of his nose.

They started stepping around a little, mimicking ballroom dancing, but far less graceful. Octavio's blank expression faded, and he soon had a big dumb grin on his face that Taejoon couldn't help but return.

"You're so cheesy," Octavio teased him, pressing up against Taejoon and placing his hands on his chest.

"Says the one who started dancing."

"Yeah, but at least I look cool when I do it." Octavio pushed away from him only to place his hands on his shoulders, leading Taejoon forcefully in his dance, but he didn't mind, content to let the shorter man take control, overstimulation be damned.

The dropship rumbled beneath their feet as they danced, Taejoon tripping a little more often than not. The song soon came to an end, only to start back up again, now little more than background noise to them as they stared at one another.

This felt nice. This felt...natural. How they _should_ be—not frustrated or scared or cautious or angry. Taejoon liked goofing off with Octavio, especially after so many months of having to act robotic and careful. He rubbed his thumb gently against the other's exposed hip, his shorts low-hanging and cute stomach on full display with the half-ripped band tee he was wearing.

"I love you," Taejoon told him quietly, wanting to see that pretty flush come to his face, and he was rewarded with just that. Octavio bit on his lower lip, and Taejoon fought back the urge to lean in and capture his lips with his own.

Dancing like this, he could almost forget what awaited them on Psamathe. Like this, all that mattered was Octavio, and the way he felt when he touched the other. 

Octavio soon let go of his shoulders and spun dramatically around him, before practically falling into Taejoon's arms. He looked up at him and said,

"Dip me. Like they do in movies."

"This isn't going to go well," Taejoon told him through a laugh, but he followed his boyfriend's command anyways and gently grabbed the small of his back, dipping him low. Octavio lost his balance almost immediately and tumbled out of his grip, landing in a pile on the ground with a groan.

"I'm sorry."

"It's cool. I hate slow-dancing."

"Then why are we?"

"Because that old bastard is playing slow-dance tunes," Octavio huffed. "I wanna breakdance."

"...Can you?" Taejoon offered his hand to help the other up, and he took it.

"Not without breaking something, but yeah!" Octavio got back to his feet, stumbling a little closely into Taejoon's space. They stared at one another, eyes wide, until the song stopped playing and a newer, jankier tune started. He let go of his boyfriend's hand, and returned to his place on the couch, feeling a little lighter after all that. He swore he could feel Octavio watching him, but didn't look back to check.

The sixth and seventh days passed quickly for Taejoon, who was stuck on an emotional roller coaster of dreading what was going to happen when they touched down, and Octavio doing his damnedest to take his mind off of everything with one stupid stunt after the next. He appreciated the effort his boyfriend was going through, but by the time Maccoy announced that they would be landing in three hours, Taejoon was exhausted after so many highs and lows.

He sat down by their luggage near the exit, where the ramp would soon descend down to let them touch Psamathe ground once again.

The switchblade was in his hands, knife popping in and out whenever he pleased, just to reassure himself that it was _there_ , and that he had something to protect himself with. He'd told Octavio to keep his pepper spray on him, but he didn't think the other had taken him very seriously. If it came down to it, Octavio could probably just run away, as he was very fast, and Taejoon could fight any attackers off...

 _You have a wild imagination,_ a voice that sounded a lot like Mystik's said in his head, and he shook it off with a sigh, letting his hand and the switchblade fall down between his crossed legs.

Octavio eventually slid down the handrails and wandered over to him, his good nature seeming to have dissipated the closer they got to landing. His face was blank, as if he were lost in thought, or rather, trying not to think at all. He glanced over at Taejoon and gave him a smile that quickly faded away, and Taejoon once again felt guilty for dragging Octavio back here, even though it had been the other's idea in the first place.

"I'm sorry," Taejoon mumbled quietly, though he wasn't sure if he was heard over the noise of the dropship.

"It's okay," Octavio mumbled, head tilted to the side. "I want to help you."

The purple-haired co-pilot found the two of them sitting across from one another silently, and gave them both a curious look. They then gestured to their gold wristwatch, and held up their index finger. One hour until they landed.

Taejoon wrapped his arms around his knees, mimicking Octavio's current position, and tried not to focus on the way the dropship seemed to be sending vibrations up his body.

He felt like he had dozed off; one minute he was staring at the floor between he and Octavio, wondering just what was going to happen to them when they landed, and the next he was blinking as the floor shuddered and Maccoy announced something over the intercom.

They'd finally reached their destination.

Taejoon glanced over to see Octavio getting to his feet, eyes glazed over and mouth turned down at the corners. He stood up as well, and reached his hand out to try and take his boyfriend's into his, but Octavio flinched at the sudden contact, ripping himself away from Taejoon.

Blinking, he muttered out a quick apology and Octavio just smiled at him, though it was strained and disappeared as soon as the dropship door opened, and the ramp descended automatically down. Taejoon held the switchblade in his hand carefully as he heard Maccoy's odd footsteps behind him, before a hand clapped him on his back and said,

"Off you go. I've had enough of criminals on my ship."

The co-pilot rolled their eyes at this as they carried Octavio's suitcase down before him.

"Yes, that includes you, Leo. Don't think I didn't see that!" Maccoy called after them. Taejoon still hadn't stepped forward, and neither had Octavio—but Maccoy placed his hands on both of their shoulders and started forcibly steering them out with an exaggerated sigh of annoyance. 

Taejoon turned his head to get a good look at their location; they didn't seem to be at the hangar Octavio had driven to when they first left, but rather, an airport. Two small, private jets sat to their left, and yet another luxury dropship to their right. Several feet in front of them was a shiny black car—not the Benz, as that had been totaled, but a BMW. A tall woman was leaned against it, chauffeur's hat pulled low over her face, but tight blonde curls distinguishable even from this distance.

Taejoon kept glancing around, looking for a sign of anyone else, attackers, perhaps—but they were totally alone. It seemed almost eerie.

" _Silva_!"

This unfamiliar voice rang through the air, and he watched Octavio's head jerk in its direction, eyes suddenly alert; a pink-haired woman was jogging towards them, hair pulled up into buns and a smattering of youthful freckles across her cheeks and nose.

She had what would normally be considered a kind face, but currently her eyes were narrowed, and her fists clenched by her sides.

"Uh-oh," Octavio said.

"I'm going to _kill you_!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [the song in question](https://youtu.be/uFDJrKbjvHs)  
> hope u guys liked this chapter !! ;w; dont be afraid to leave a comment <3 <3 <3


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws:  
> there is a flashback in this chapter set before octavio came out as trans/started presenting as male, but i still used he/him pronouns and his proper name, and he gets misgendered once.

“Hey, Che, check this out.”

“Are you wearing shorts?”

“No, why?”

“The last time you did this, you fell and Giorno saw your underwear.” Ajay smirked at him from her spot by the window, plugging in her stereo and opening up the shutters to fill the room with light, making the space seem somehow more open. “You sure you wanna do that again?”

Octavio rolled his eyes, no longer leaning his skateboard so far forward. They’d just gotten off of school a half hour ago, so he was still wearing the mandated skirt and sweater vest. They were at Ajay’s place—well, one of them, anyways. Her parents' penthouse, which, while not as large as their summer home, was _way_ cooler, with its glass walls and sleek, simple furniture.

“Well, Giorno’s not here right now, is he?” He mocked, and then kicked off from the top of the stairs before she could say anything else, doing his best to stay balanced as his board bounced down each individual step with a _bang._

It was pretty fucking cool, right until it wasn’t, and he went flying about two thirds of the way down, crashing into the wall. At least his skirt hadn’t ridden up this time around, but _ouch._

“Oh my god,” Ajay laughed, and he gave a grin at the tinkling sound of it. “C’mere, let me check your head.”

Octavio got to his feet and wandered over to her, a little unsteady on his feet from the pain of having hit the wall. Ajay was dressed down in a loose t-shirt and bicycle shorts, about to practice her dance routine, but pausing so that she could make sure Octavio hadn’t hurt himself. She grabbed his head none-too-gently, turning it this way and that, before flicking him on his nose with a grin.

“You’re fine.”

“Thanks, doc,” Octavio said. He followed her back to where she was preparing to dance, reaching into her backpack to steal a couple of her hairclips.

His hair was almost shoulder-length, because he wanted it to be short but his dad wouldn't let him shave it yet, and it wasn’t long enough to put into a ponytail, so he could never tie it up to get it out of his face. His bangs were already sticking to his forehead from sweat, so he clipped them back, and then sat down against one of the many living room windows to watch Ajay dance.

This was only their second year at school together; before middle school, he’d only ever seen her at parties and business meetings, whenever her parents brought her along. She lived primarily on the beach in a three-story beach house, though for the start of middle school, her parents had decided to delegate it as their summer home and bought a penthouse for them to stay during the school year instead.

Octavio liked the penthouse way more than his own house; definitely smaller, but a lot more stylish and modern. Not so many suffocating white walls that separated the entire house from one another. No, this place was open, airy, and bright, much like Ajay herself.

Ajay’s dance moves contrasted her personality a little; sharp, precise, carefully controlled. She was fond of popping, and especially fond of performing moves that made her seem boneless. She'd always been musically inclined, and seemed to dance like she _was_ the beat, not just dancing _to_ it.

She twisted her waist, moving her elbows and knees in such a way that made Octavio hurt just by looking at her. She smiled like she was performing, charismatic by nature, and by the time she was done he was clapping his hands and yelling,

“Ay, let’s go, Che!”

She bowed to him, a little out of breath. “Anything for my fans.”

The next song started, and Ajay kept dancing, though more experimentally than before, not quite as precise.

Octavio got up to get a snack from the kitchen, digging through her pantry until he happened upon a box of gummy snacks. He took two and opened them both, pouring them into a small bowl before opening up the fridge to get a soda.

By the time he returned Ajay was trying her hardest to breakdance; balanced on her palms and heels, she kept trying to kick her leg up to get proper momentum, but failed. Octavio ate his gummy snacks, grew bored with watching her fail repeatedly, and went to retrieve his skateboard. 

He was just considering setting up a ramp against the back of the Ches’ modern couch when his phone buzzed from his backpack, and he gave a groan, a sinking feeling already in his stomach. He pulled it out to see that his father had texted him several times, demanding that he come home _right away,_ and if that he wasn’t back at the house before five, he’d be grounded until he graduated high school.

Octavio stepped onto his skateboard and glided over to where Ajay was sitting, having given up on breakdancing and now drinking from a water bottle. She’d pushed all of the furniture out of the way so that she could have more room, which Octavio knew her mother wouldn’t approve of.

“What’s up?” Ajay asked him as he approached, tilting her head.

“I’ve gotta go,” Octavio grumbled, and she frowned.

“Why?”

“I’m gonna be grounded if I don’t.”

“But I thought we were gonna see that new movie together? Didn’t you ask him?”

“I did,” Octavio lied, not wanting to admit that he had forgotten to. “But I guess he changed his mind.”

“...I’ll walk home with you, then,” Ajay sighed, getting to her feet and shaking her hair out. She hadn't started dyeing it until high school, so it was currently black like his, and far more curly. “But let me clean all this up first, so my mum doesn’t freak out when she gets home.”

Octavio watched his best friend rearrange all the couches and end tables—Ajay wasn’t allowed to dance at home, due to how strict her parents were with the decoration and placement of their furniture, but she often did it anyways. Octavio knew that if Mrs. Che found out that he used their house as an indoor skating ramp, she would ban him from coming to their house ever again.

Her parents weren't as bad as his. They were friendly enough, he supposed—just very, _very_ neat and orderly.

“Ugh, this is so annoyin’,” Ajay grumbled to herself as she finally unplugged the stereo. “Help me carry this up to my room.”

Once they’d set it back where it belonged, the two of them left the penthouse, getting into the elevator and going back-and-forth, arguing over what they thought was going to happen in the movie they were supposed to see. Their conversation eventually faded into silence as they got onto the ground floor, and, arm-in-arm, they walked down the sidewalk together.

Octavio wanted to get on his skateboard and ride down the street, but kept it at his side for now, letting himself be tugged along by Ajay as he became lost in thought.

They had been _so_ excited to see this movie, but of course, his father _had_ to go and ruin it. Nevermind the fact that he’d forgotten to ask for permission in the first place—it wasn't like his dad normally cared about what he did, and he wasn’t sure why he suddenly cared now.

 _Is it ‘cuz I’m a teenager now?_ He thought to himself, because back then, thirteen had seemed like such a big age.

He let go of Ajay's arm as the sidewalk started declining steadily, this particular street built on a hill. It was one of the only ways leading to the expensive neighborhood he lived in, just a little bit outside of the city. Normally he would’ve just taken the train home or asked for his father’s chauffeur to take him, but he wanted to walk with Ajay today...

And he also wanted to see that movie. He wasn't used to being told _no._

Octavio pulled his phone out of his backpack again, glaring at the time—ten minutes until five. There was absolutely _no way_ they’d make it in time.

Stopping abruptly, Ajay nearly bumped into him as he planted his feet firmly on the ground and announced, “I’m gonna see the movie.”

“But...aren’t you gonna get grounded?” Ajay asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I don’t care,” Octavio huffed, and turned on his heel, already making his way back up the street. “We’re _gonna_ see that movie, Che.”

His father had never implemented a curfew or anything before; why should he comply with one _now_? And his father hadn’t even bothered to send Delilah over; it was like he was setting Octavio up to not make it home on time! Well, fuck that, if he was going to be late and grounded anyways, he might as well see that damn movie! He was _thirteen,_ which meant he was _grown_ now.

“Wait! Silva!” He paused to let Ajay catch up with him, and when she fell in step beside him, continued walking. “What's gonna happen when you're grounded, genius? How are you gonna make it to my competition then, huh?”

“I’ll find a way,” Octavio said, holding his head high. “I don’t have to listen to what my dad says.”

“Uh, you kind of have to,” Ajay said. “He’s your dad.”

“You don’t get it.”

“Why do you say that?”

“‘Cuz you just don’t.”

“Tell me why, then.”

“I don’t want to.”

Ajay scowled at him, purposely jabbing him in the ribs with her elbow. “Hey, if you’re gonna drag me into breakin’ rules with you, you better tell me why, missy.”

Octavio stopped right before a crosswalk, glancing over at his friend, who had her hands on her hips. She was still wearing her bicycle shorts and loose t-shirt, taller than him by a couple of inches, which annoyed him for some reason, but he didn’t know why. He stared up at her, meeting her eyes as he tried to formulate a response.

Why was he going to break the rules, or why did he not want to listen to his dad? He wasn’t really sure which answer she wanted from him, and he was having trouble thinking up an excuse. His fingers tapped against his skateboard as he opened his mouth and closed it several times, before an idea popped into his mind, something that seemed _genius_ to a dumbass thirteen-year-old.

“Let’s run away, Che," he said.

Ajay’s face went a little slack at that. “...Huh?”

“I said, let’s run away!” The crosswalk sign changed, and they both raced across the street. “That way, my dad won’t bother me anymore, and we can go see all the movies we want, and you can dance _whenever_!”

He was bouncing on his heels a little as he looked for the movie theater, not quite sure where it was, but a little too excited to pay proper attention now that his mind had latched onto the idea.

Yes, he could see it all now: he could take all of the money out of his trust fund, and buy a cool apartment in the city, just like Ajay’s penthouse. He wouldn’t have to go to school anymore, wouldn’t have to wear this stupid skirt, and could shave his head! Ajay could have her own little dance studio, and get a dog! Mr. Che was allergic, so pets were forbidden from their house...and Octavio could bring Navi, and get as many rabbits as he wanted!

They were _basically_ adults now, right? Teenagers! Why hadn’t he thought of this before?! He would no longer have to wear what his father told him to, wouldn’t have to lock himself inside his room every time he came home drunk, could do something _cool_ with his life instead of running the stupid _company._ No one could ever tell him _no,_ then.

And of course, Ajay was going to be there, because she had to be. They were best friends! This was perfect!

“Silva, I think you’re crazy,” Ajay said, sounding amused as if she could read his wildly out-of-control thoughts. “You _really_ wanna run away together?”

“Duh,” he said, still bouncing. “Imagine all the _dogs_ you could get.”

“You drive a hard bargain. How would we pay for it, then?”

“Our trust funds. If we combine them, we would be, like, the third-richest duo in the city.” Octavio pointed to a random building, imagination still going haywire. “How about living there? Or over there? Ey, hermana, what about there? That place has a _fountain_.”

“I could have my own dance studio,” Ajay wondered out loud, echoing Octavio’s earlier thoughts. “But I’d miss my parents...”

“Forget your parents,” Octavio told her, and she scoffed a little. "They don't matter! _We_ do."

"Not everyone hates their dad like you do, Silva."

"Hey, I'm the boss in this friendship, remember?" He complained as they finally stopped outside the movie theater, and Ajay rolled her eyes at that, crossing her arms in response.

He supposed that as long as his own dad stayed far, _far_ away from him, he didn’t care what she did. They just had to stick together, because that’s what best friends did. His father may leave him every week for some new business trip, and his mother may have died, and his nannies may have all grown sick of him and left, but Ajay was here to stay, and that was all that mattered.

"You can't be the boss of a friendship," Ajay argued, sounding actually mad, and he laughed in her face.

"Fine, then. I'm the boss of _you._ " When his friend turned on her heel and stormed inside the building, he panicked, as he realized that she was supposed to be the one who bought his ticket. "H-hey, I was joking, hermana, wait!"

* * *

Ajay had never been very physically affectionate with him, especially after he'd come out. She’d joked with him that ‘now that he was a boy’, she couldn’t let people get the wrong idea about the two of them, and had stopped walking arm-in-arm like they’d used to; but aside from the arm thing, they’d never really hugged or anything, so he was a little shocked when her arms wrapped around his neck and she swept him up into a bone-crushing hug.

Octavio stumbled a little, the wind blowing through his hair and bringing with it the familiar smell of the ocean. He wished he could say that it was good to be back on Psamathe, but honestly, he was already hating it.

After several confused moments, he started to hug Ajay back, but she pulled away from him quickly before punching him hard in his arm.

“Wh—ow!" He cried, rubbing the spot she had hit, hearing Maccoy's laughter behind him. "What the fuck, chica?”

“That’s what you _fuckin’_ get,” Ajay seethed, accent getting heavier with her anger, and oh shit she was _mad_ mad. “That’s what you fuckin’ get for not tellin’ me you’re _alive_ you fuckin’ _asshole_. I had to find out from your _father!_ ”

... _Oops_. He had literally forgotten to tell her that he was alive...then again, she hadn’t been very high on his list of priorities at the time, what with the whole _‘we have to get off the planet without the authorities finding us and killing us'_ thing, and also the general dread of having to return to Psamathe after he’d escaped it.

And speaking of leaving Psamathe...

Octavio frowned at her, remembering the voicemails she had left. “Shouldn’t you be on Solace?”

But Ajay didn’t answer him; her hands had found his, holding them loosely in her own, and she was staring over at Taejoon, eyes narrowed and body stiff. His boyfriend was staring back at her with wide eyes, mouth drawn into a pout. His gaze flickered from Ajay to Octavio in a silent plea for help, so he jumped to his defense.

“He’s good. We're good,” he said, but Ajay didn’t seem at all convinced. She continued eyeing Taejoon distrustfully, while the other man had slid his hands into his pockets, clearly unsure how to respond to the situation.

She suddenly started pulling Octavio down the ramp, and he squawked in surprise at the force with which she led him. Taejoon followed behind them, but Ajay pulled Octavio out of the way of the car, marching him to some spot in the grass, sending a clear message to Taejoon; _do not follow us._

His best friend then rounded on him, and asked him in a low, serious voice,

“What are you doing with that _thing_?”

“What?” Octavio asked, bewildered. “Didn't my dad tell you?”

“He told me a lot, Silva, but I still need to know why you’re helping it out. I need to hear it from _you_ ,” she said, folding her arms across her chest and foot tapping a beat, anxious. There were dark bags under her eyes, and a small scar on her neck that hadn’t been there the last time he’d talked to her. Her roots were also more visible than he’d seen them in years, and though he hadn’t seen her in a few months, it felt much, much longer than that.

Ajay had changed.

"Hear what from me?"

“What did it tell you?”

“Well, _he_ has a name, and it’s Taejoon,” Octavio said defensively, and he could tell that Ajay was resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “Hey, no, seriously, we’re cool, chica.”

Ajay inhaled sharply, and for a minute he was worried that she was going to yell at him; but then she exhaled, and her eyes narrowed.

“I watched that thing kill you,” Ajay said calmly, but he could detect an undercurrent of something _else_ beneath it. “Over and over. I watched that thing choke you out on the floor while you struggled for air. While you tried to escape but couldn’t.”

Before Octavio could even begin to say ' _it’s complicated'_ , Ajay kept on:

“Your father told me it had been your bodyguard. I thought, for so long, that you had been led out somewhere. Tricked and tortured. That you’d trusted this _thing_ to protect you, and then you’d died, and I’d thought—"

"Ajay."

"I’d _seen_ it before." Her voice cracked, and something like guilt and shame started taking its root in him, emotions he'd thought he'd shed after that day in the attic. "I’ve seen the thing that killed you, Octavio. And I wished that I could go back in time and kill it first before it could lay its hands on you."

“Ajay,” Octavio repeated, but his voice came out thick as her words brought back awful memories—fingers tightening around his throat, dark red lights burning overhead, shadowing Taejoon’s face. The explosion of the labs behind him, the knowledge that he’d let someone die and that his boyfriend could wake up at any moment and...

“So forgive me if I ain’t willing to trust it, Silva.” Ajay wiped at her eyes, taking another deep breath. “You’re not gonna believe it, but—it changed me. Losing you changed me.”

He managed to speak around the blockage in his throat: “How so?”

“I never thought I was capable of killin’ anything before.” She cocked her head to the side, eyes raised to the sky. “But then you were gone, and I was hurting. So I joined the Apex games. Put the anger into a good cause to undo what my parents have done. Raise as much money as they earned during bloodshed.”

Silence filled the air between them, Octavio turning his head to watch Taejoon stand awkwardly before Delilah, clearly unsure if he should speak to her or not. Maccoy was drinking from a flask while Leo helped load their bags into the back of the BMW, their purple hair standing out starkly against everything else. 

Her words were bringing back so many memories, and also making him feel guilty for forgetting to tell her that he was alive. He’d wished that he could tell her during his entire stay at the orphanage, but the moment he’d been given clearance to tell his friends and family he was still out there, he’d... _forgotten_. He felt like he had betrayed her, somehow.

And the comment she made about wanting to kill Taejoon, so much so that she joined a fucking _bloodsport_ , made him shudder a little. Sure, she had technically joined for virtuous reasons, but...

Octavio hesitated, before stepping forward and hugging his friend. He could feel her stiffening up beneath his touch, but she soon relaxed and returned the hug, patting him lightly on the back. He had missed her the most since leaving Psamathe, and while this reunion wasn't what he'd wanted, he realized he was somewhat at fault for it.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, but didn't know which to apologize for first— _sorry for keeping this a secret from you, sorry for leaving Psamathe without telling you, sorry for letting you grieve without contacting you, sorry for not calling you..._

"Who are you and what have you done with the real Octavio Silva?" Ajay laughed into his ear, and they pulled away from each other, feeling a tiny bit better. Trying to keep the ball rolling until the situation was something a little more light-hearted, Octavio asked,

“How’s the Apex Games going for ya, anyways?”

Ajay pursed her lips at him, feigning annoyance. “You dyin’ ruined my debut season. Makin' my life complicated even after death.”

“How?” He asked, good-natured.

“Well, your dad pulled funding in the middle of it and stopped supplying medkits. Can’t exactly do a death game without health, now, can we?” Ajay’s demeanor changed a little as a more honest smile came to her face then, eyes bright. “But I did build a lil’ somethin’ to keep my head afloat—I’ll show you him when we get to the hotel room.”

Octavio smiled back at her, genuinely happy to see her smile, but then realized what she’d said.

“Hotel room?”

“I’ll explain later—we should get in the car.”

Ajay turned on her heel, but paused when she saw Taejoon standing next to the BMW. She looked back at Octavio, as if wondering how to word her next sentence, before asking, “It’s not gonna ride in the back with us, is it?”

“Of course he is,” Octavio snapped, and his best friend scowled at the tone of his voice. “His name is _Taejoon_.”

Ajay sighed, reaching up to tighten her buns, a nervous habit he was familiar with. Leo had returned to Maccoy’s side, waving at him in a good-bye that he silently returned while he waited for his friend to gather her thoughts and speak.

“You can’t expect me to like him, Tavi,” Ajay finally said, using the nickname she’d given him when he’d first started using his new name. “I’m sorry, I can’t trust him yet. I don’t know what he told you, but—”

“He’s my boyfriend,” Octavio said, deciding to just get _that_ out of the way.

Ajay stared at him, jaw slack. “He’s your what.”

“My boyfriend.”

“Your...boy...friend?”

“We kiss and hold hands and stuff.” 

Ajay kept staring at him, unblinking, before asking in a flat voice, “Are you pulling my leg?”

“Nope! He’s my boyfriend, Che, so I need you to be a little nicer to him.”

He watched his friend take a deep breath, looking, for all intents and purposes, fucking _exhausted_. She then turned on her heel once again and marched silently back to the car, either unable or unwilling to ask any more questions. Octavio followed after her, making eye contact with Taejoon as he did so.

The other man looked like he was two seconds away from screaming for help, clearly uncomfortable with this whole situation, shoulders hunched and staring hard at the grass. As Ajay approached Delilah sprung into action and held the door open for her, and his friend crawled into the backseat, scooting all the way behind the passenger's side.

Octavio avoided making eye contact with Delilah as his boyfriend walked around the car to join him, his way into the backseat having been cut off by Ajay. Octavio slid into the middle while Taejoon clambered right behind the driver’s seat, nodding his head silently at Delilah, who just shut the door without saying anything.

Ajay propped her elbow up against the car door, resting her cheek against her fist as she stared silently out the window. Taejoon, clearly sensing that half the people in this car did not like him, was also staring out the window, leg bouncing due to nervousness. 

Octavio sighed, putting his seatbelt on as Delilah slid into the front seat.

Well, this was gonna _suck_.

The drive to Olympus was three hours shorter than the drive to Suotamo had been; Octavio previously would have thought that the drive from his father’s private airport to the city was unbearably long, but after staying on Gaea for a couple of months, he was glad that the trip was only a mere hour. 

Psamathe seemed much smaller compared to Gaea; brighter and airier, though Gaea was definitely hotter, and the traffic didn’t seem so bad after witnessing the sheer amount of people that flooded Suotamo’s subways. He really wanted to tell Ajay about it, but the silence inside the car was very suffocating, and he felt like if he spoke he’d only serve to annoy everyone else even further.

His own leg started bouncing, right beside Taejoon’s, and he tried matching the movement with his, but the other man seemed to notice and stopped almost immediately. He started biting on his nails the closer they got to the city, swearing that he could see the Silva Pharmaceuticals building from here...

Taejoon's fingers found his wrist and gently pulled his hand away from his mouth without saying anything. He stared down at his nails, his index nail nearly bitten down to the bed, before sighing and leaning against his boyfriend, trying to make himself calm down.

The week on the dropship hadn’t been very nice to Octavio; he’d kept waking up, fearful and sweaty, reminded of the trip from Psamathe to Gaea that had kept him at the end of his frayed rope for so long. Ajay’s words had sparked memories of Taejoon on top of him, cold and unseeing, and so Octavio was trying to drive that image out of his mind by telling himself _It’s okay now._ We’re _okay._

He reached over and took Taejoon’s hand into his, and his boyfriend squeezed his palm in response. He swore he heard Ajay scoff, but didn’t look at her, trying not to let reality sink in: _I’m going to see my dad._

The hotel they were apparently going to stay at wasn’t the fanciest one around, but it was about twenty stories high and had crystal chandeliers inside, so there was that. A red velvet carpet led up the marble steps, and the ornately-carved pillars gave the place a classical Greek feel, or something. Octavio didn’t really know much about history, but he was _sure_ it was Greek. Or maybe Roman..?

Whatever it was, it was fancy, but not _too_ fancy. Delilah held open the car door for Ajay, and Taejoon left out his own side as well. After a split second decision, Octavio scooted after his friend, following her into the parking lot, and accidentally made eye contact with Delilah while doing so.

She pursed her lips and glanced away from him, not saying anything, which made him feel awkward, because the last time he’d seen her he was pretty sure she had been mad at him for blackmailing Irina.

“Someone else will grab your bags for you,” Delilah said to no one in particular, turning away from him, and she wandered off, taking her phone out of her pants pocket.

Ajay had already made her way inside and Taejoon was adjusting his parka collar, glancing around in a paranoid manner. Octavio gave him a grin, though he knew it looked forced.

“C’mon, cariño. I bet this place has a jacuzzi.”

“We’re not here for leisure,” Taejoon mumbled, but followed him up the steps anyways.

They were staying on the sixteenth floor, which his father had apparently rented out. Eight men in sharp black suits were on this floor, each standing by the elevators, windows, and rooms. They were all tall and intimidating, broad and muscular—he recognized one of them from Adele’s birthday party, after she’d adamantly refused to have Taejoon attend and had brought bodyguards of her own instead.

There were four rooms on this floor, and Ajay handed Octavio keycards for two; he supposed that one was supposed to be Taejoon’s, but she didn’t really want to address him directly yet.

“Which one’s mine?” He asked.

“One-twenty-seven, I think.”

His suite was large, with floor-to-ceiling windows that reminded him a bit of Ajay’s penthouse, the lights of the city and the golden glow of the setting sun lighting up the room. A large, king-sized bed with fluffy white sheets was propped in front of a huge TV that could probably kill the average person if it fell on top of them.

There was a mini-fridge stocked with drinks and food, the drinks mostly alcoholic, but plenty of sodas inside, too. Gourmet candies and snacks rested atop the counter next to a delicate little card that read _Welcome home, Octavio._

It was all pretty standard for the hotels he typically stayed at, though the card seemed especially mocking. He picked it up and tossed it in the trash, which Ajay frowned at, but didn’t say anything. 

Taejoon’s room was connected to Octavio’s, though it could be locked from Octavio’s side. His boyfriend’s room, while still nice, as this was an expensive hotel, was not quite at the same level as Octavio’s; two twin-sized beds and a smaller TV, though the windows and general aesthetic were the same. He didn’t have any snacks, either, but that was to be expected.

“Your father wants you to stay here,” Ajay said as Octavio picked up one of the fluffy pillows provided to him.

“Why?”

“I’m not sure." Her hips were swaying side to side as she stood there, as if moving to music that only she could hear. "That was all I was told."

“No offense amiga, but _why_ did he send you, anyway?"

“He was busy,” Ajay mumbled, crossing her arms and casting a glance around his room. “And I volunteered, because in case you forgot, you didn’t tell me that you were alive.”

 _The guilt. Ughhhh._ “Lo siento.”

“The past’s in the past,” his friend sighed reluctantly. “You hungry?”

“Yep.” Octavio opened the mini-fridge again to see the food that had been provided for him; he didn’t really want to call room service, his social battery already verging on depletion, so he took out a little packaged gourmet sausage and set it on top of the electric stove. “You like sausage, right?”

Ajay didn’t say anything. _Ah, silent treatment again. The good old days._

He found a silver skillet that clearly hadn’t seen much use while he tried to remember how Mystik had told him to cook Italian sausage... _add water_ , right?...he was pretty sure it didn’t need oil...actually, couldn’t he make these in the oven, too?

Nah, he’d rather just do it in the skillet, but first he had to remember if he needed oil or water.

“What are you doing?” Ajay asked him, a little snappy. Octavio startled a little, not realizing that she had been directly behind him, before turning to stare at her.

“Cooking?” He said hesitantly, feeling as though he had done something wrong.

“Since when could you cook?”

“...I learned how to on Gaea?”

Ajay maintained eye contact with him for such a long while that he thought that she was genuinely angry with him for whatever reason. Then, her shoulders slumped, and she let out a tired sigh.

“It sounds like you’ve got a lot to tell me, O.”

* * *

Taejoon knew that returning to Psamathe wouldn’t be easy, but he hadn’t been very prepared for it all.

First, there was the general paranoia he felt as he passed by Delilah and all of the security guards stationed on he and Octavio’s floor; though their eyes were hidden by sunglasses, he swore he could feel their gazes burning into the back of his head, watching him and waiting for him to make a move.

But aside from them, the sheer amount of distrust and dislike he felt radiating off of Ajay Che left him feeling awkward as well, and he wondered just how much he would be experiencing such emotions directed his way for the next couple of days.

Was everyone going to hate him? See him as a monster, something to be kept at a distance? He’d already experienced this somewhat back at the orphanage, that short window of time Jordan had been wary of him, but those had been people he _knew_ , people who knew him and trusted him and quickly saw the truth once he had explained himself.

Mystik and the others knew him as Taejoon Park, the child prodigy who grew up on the streets and picked locks and stole from his foster families whenever they were mean to him; who eventually grew into a much more mild-mannered, awkward adult who had to be dragged out of his apartment every now and then to experience sunshine.

Ajay didn’t know him, Octavio’s father didn’t know him... _nobody_ here knew him, had any reason to trust him or his word. All _they_ saw was the dead body of a wanted criminal masquerading as a robot, who had eventually turned on his charge and tried to kill him, before running away with him to another planet.

That’s all they knew him as. A criminal. An android. A killer.

He stood at the dresser that had been provided for him, staring at his face in the mirror, trying to sort himself out. Trying to tell himself that everything was going to be okay, that they hadn’t attacked him yet, and it was honestly quite understandable that they were cautious of him—but it all sounded so hollow in his head, so exhausting and pensive.

He gripped the smooth wooden surface, the sensation pleasant beneath his fingertips as he took several deep, steadying breaths. He hadn't been attacked yet, hadn't been tackled to the ground and handcuffed, nor had a bag been shoved over his head like his first death...

_Calm down. Stop being so fucking paranoid._

The voice in his head sounded a little like Mila’s, and he laughed quietly beneath his breath, but his laughter soon faded as he made eye contact with himself in the mirror again, and flinched at what he saw.

Taejoon had seen his face repeatedly these past few weeks; on billboards, plastered on wanted posters, while the footage of him on top of Octavio circulated everywhere. A constant reminder of the atrocity he’d nearly committed, the corruption of him at the hands of one data chip, and seeing his face in his reflection just brought all of those memories back.

He ran his hands over his face, before sliding his finger along the panel on the back of his neck, feeling the faint outline of it. He’d considered asking Fawkes to weld it shut, but had decided not to just in case...well, just in case what, he didn’t know, but it was still able to be opened and closed.

Keeping his eyes trained on his reflection, he managed to pry the panel open, and his body flinched a little at this action, unused to _feeling_ it. He turned his head a little, trying to get a better look at the panel, before it made nausea churn inside him and he shuddered, closing it once again. God, that was...freaky.

Taejoon wandered around his hotel room, taking note of everything—the door had shut behind him when he’d moved from Octavio’s room, and he didn’t want to bother knocking for now, feeling like he had been intruding on Octavio and Ajay’s reunion somewhat. 

He checked every corner of his room to see if a security camera had been installed, and when he found none, still didn’t relax. Taking off his parka and discarding it onto a chair, he kicked off his shoes and climbed on top of one of the twin beds, standing directly under a vent.

Upon closer inspection, the nails keeping it in place clearly hadn’t been unscrewed in a long time, but he forced the vent shut anyways in case there really was a camera up there. He wasn’t too worried about it getting hot.

It was times like these, searching for a hidden camera in his room, that he almost missed his programming; or, at least, the ability to detect electronics and instantly access networks with ease. He closed his eyes and tried to do so, but gave up when he felt nothing, knowing he had been foolish for thinking that he could.

He picked up the TV remote and flipped through countless movie channels, sitting on the edge of one of the beds, though his leg was bouncing and he couldn’t really focus.

The sun had truly set, the city lights twinkling outside his window, and he soon found himself distracted by them. There was a whole world out there, not knowing that there was a wanted criminal looking out at them...not knowing that maybe, just maybe, his story would be heard and flip their perceptions of the Syndicate and Hammond Robotics...

What would happen if he was able to tell others what happened to him, and they believed him? The Syndicate was the closest thing the Outlands had to a government, and even if the people were faintly aware of their origins, they still chose to place their trust in them.

But once they found out that the Syndicate had framed him for a crime, killed him, and then turned him over to Hammond to use his body for other means, what would they do? Would they fear that they could be next, and revolt? What was there to even revolt against? Nobody knew how the Syndicate was structured; just that they were _in charge._

The people of Psamathe and Gaea, especially, as the only planets with police forces and representatives of the Syndicate as the governing body...what would the they do? 

Would they ignore it, and just hope that it didn’t happen to them? Hope that they would be just fine, because unlike him, they weren’t hackers who meddled in things they had no right meddling in? Or would fear permeate them, distrusting and doubtful and leery?

Taejoon jumped a little as the door connecting he and Octavio’s rooms opened, and Ajay stood there, giving him a look. He raised his eyebrows, setting the remote down slowly and trying his best to appear non-threatening to her. He could see Octavio laying down on his bed behind her, apparently fast asleep, the bags under his eyes noticeable even from here.

Then, Ajay shut the door, and he was alone in the room with her.

“So,” Ajay Che said, and Taejoon felt nervous as he was subjected to her clear scorn. They stared at one another, the ticking bedside clock that he hadn’t noticed before amplified in this silence, each _tick_ heightening his anxiety.

She was roughly Octavio’s height, and more muscular than the last time he’d seen her—to his understanding, she’d started competing in the Apex Games and had gone off to train as a combat medic before it, so it was understandable that she would have buffed up since then—but muscles aside, the scrutinizing look she was giving him was enough to make him shudder.

“I’m supposed to take you to Mr. Silva’s office,” Ajay told him, arms held stiffly at her sides, and he blinked.

“Like...by myself?” He asked, speaking quietly.

“I think he wants to speak to you.”

"About what?"

She huffed out a little. “I’m not his errand girl, okay? I just wanted to see Octavio and make sure that you don’t hurt him. That includes making sure you go to the office when you’re supposed to.”

 _Make sure that you don’t hurt him._ Suddenly, the bodyguards placed around this floor didn’t seem like they were there to protect Octavio from outside, interfering forces—he now felt as if they were there to protect Octavio from _him_.

Why their rooms were connected if this was the case, he didn’t know, but there were guards outside both of their doors, and they would be able to hear his boyfriend’s cries for help if anything happened...

The self-loathing he’d been trying to stave off for so long came back in full force. They must have all seen that footage of him, then, and knew how much of a monster he could be...how susceptible he was to hurting the people close to him, even if unintentionally.

Taejoon pinched the bridge of his nose as he felt a migraine coming on, forcing himself to stop thinking of it—he was doing himself no favors by getting worked up like this and being stuck in the past. He had to move on if he wanted to end this nightmarish chapter of his life.

“C’mon,” Ajay said, and he got to his feet with a sigh, not missing the way she eyed him warily. “Let’s go.”

When they stepped out into the hall, Taejoon felt all of the security’s eyes on him. Three of them were new, evidently having switched with others, perhaps taking shifts, but they were all generally the same; big men, about his height, with large muscles and serious faces. Men perfectly capable of stopping him should he...

_Don't think like that._

Ajay nodded to the two men standing guard at the elevators as she led him inside one, hitting the button for the ground floor as he joined her.

Though she stared solemnly ahead, she also moved constantly like Octavio did—her fists moved in a strange manner, as if banging drums, and her hips and feet swayed to an imaginary beat. Lively and active, even if she was in a serious mood.

Taejoon wanted to say something to her, felt an obligation to, as she was one of the people Octavio was closest to, but he didn’t know how to start. He just wanted to defend himself, _prove_ himself to have Octavio’s best interests at heart, that he didn’t want to hurt anyone—just wanted this nightmare to be _over_ with, but he couldn’t find his words. Couldn't speak past the dryness in his throat.

So he waited silently, and followed her out into the parking lot when they got to the ground floor.

Delilah was stomping out her cigarette as they approached, and she moved quickly to hold open the door of the BMW for him, something she’d never done before. It made him feel the tiniest bit better—even if she didn’t like him, she still saw him as human enough to open the door up for him. 

The bar was literally on the floor.

The ride through the city didn’t take long; Kishou had chosen a hotel near his office, and ten minutes later he was standing outside a sleek, glassy building with _SILVA PHARM._ printed in gold letters on its black sign. A smiling young woman stood outside to greet people as they walked in, and she extended this same smile to he and Ajay as they stepped out of the car.

“Top floor,” Ajay informed him, leaning against the BMW. Her arms folded across her chest, and she was glaring at him. “I ain’t coming with you.”

“Alright,” Taejoon mumbled. “Thank you.”

“If you come back, I’ve got a lot to say.”

 _If you come back_. “I understand.”

Ajay scoffed, shaking her head, before glancing pointedly away. From what he knew of her, she was normally a kind person, empathetic and good-natured, but she clearly didn’t want to extend any of this to him.

That was fair. She thought he had killed her best friend, after all.

Taejoon took a deep breath, feeling a little naked without his parka, which he’d accidentally left back in his hotel room, before stepping inside the building and walking through the main lobby.

This place was very white, and honestly reminded him of Silva’s mansion—pristine walls, fluffy white rugs, and plush white couches. The whiteness made it seem hospital-like, almost, which he guessed was fair, as it was a pharmaceutical company.

He stepped into an elevator with two other individuals, neither of whom spared him a second glance. He wondered if his face had been plastered everywhere here too, and how these people would react once they realized that they were in close proximity to a supposed wanted killer...

Realizing he’d forgotten to press the button for the top floor as the elevator rose, he reached out awkwardly to do so, trying not to let his glinting fingers be noticed. He swore that the woman next to him was watching him out of the corner of her eye, but she said nothing, and he stared straight ahead, trying not to make eye contact with anyone.

Though the ride up to the top floor was quick and smooth, it rather felt like he was descending into hell. As he watched the little numbers on the display go up, the anxiety built up inside of him along with it, and his ears popped as they went higher. The elevator soon slowed to a stop and both of the people beside him got off, but he still had ten more floors to go.

Slipping his hands inside his jeans, Taejoon realized, with a sense of dread, that he had left his switchblade inside his parka. He shifted on his feet, wanting to scream, wanting to go back down and ride back to his hotel just so that he could grab it—but then the elevator doors were sliding open, and he was met with his fate.

On either side of him was a hallway, but right before him stood two security guards, standing in front of an opaque wall panel. He could see that the area right behind it was brightly lit, and that no one was inside, but he could make out the faint outlines of furniture through the wall. 

For a moment he thought he had walked right into a trap; that these men were going to apprehend him, that Kishou had never intended to listen to him after all, and he was going to be handed over to Hammond to die, as he should have a long time ago.

But that feeling passed as he stepped out of the elevator and the guards approached him calmly, patting him down as they spoke to one another in Spanish—making him suddenly glad that he had not brought his knife after all, despite his panic over it only a few seconds before.

“Mr. Silva will see you shortly,” one of the guards told him in English once they were satisfied, and they slid the panel open for him, revealing an extremely large office area that seemed like half the size of Silva’s mansion.

He stepped inside, and they shut the panel behind him—which left him feeling a little claustrophobic, despite the sheer size of this place.

Beige window coverings obscured the night city sky, which was a shame, because Taejoon thought that being this high up would provide a pretty view. A few magazines that looked untouched were sat upon a glass coffee table, and some pictures were framed on the wall—but aside from that, this area was just as white as any other place that Kishou Silva resided in.

The one thing that stood it apart from his home office was the presence of more ‘modern’ things—fancy glass chairs and opaque bookshelves, as well as a white bean bag sat in one corner of the extremely large room before a medium-sized TV. The bean bag seemed a little out of place, but Taejoon supposed that even CEOs needed time to relax for a bit.

He approached the pictures on the wall, finding that most of them were of Kishou and Adele, and that the frames seemed a little rough—no doubt from the pictures being changed every couple of years after every divorce the elder Silva went through.

He wondered if the other man was still married to Adele. If anything at all had changed in the past couple of months—grief often drove wedges in relationships, he knew.

Glancing behind him, Taejoon could see the outline of the security guards through the wall panel. He wondered if they would be able to hear him move things around as he investigated the office, but he eventually decided against it, and approached the huge, sleek desk standing proud in front of the covered windows.

This desk was messier than the one in Kishou’s home office—he had two monitors set up, as well as a stack of binders shoved to the side and an empty styrofoam cup next to them that had once held coffee.

Several papers were also resting on top of the desk, and Taejoon spared them a glance as he sat down, though he quickly did a double-take and stood right back up, staring hard at the seemingly innocuous papers.

They were letters from Hammond, their logo clearly printed on the corner of each page. Taejoon stared at them upside down, a lump forming in his throat, before twisting his head around to see if the guards were still standing outside.

Moving carefully, he stepped around to Kishou’s side of the desk, and placed his fingers gently on top of the first paper, shifting it so that he could get a better look at the one underneath it.

Here, he saw a large number; a twenty, followed by more zeros than he’d ever seen in his entire life. A _colossal_ amount of money, and the context for it all made ice run through his veins—the new acting chairman of Hammond Robotics was offering Kishou Silva a bribe.

The letter was wordy, and referenced quite a lot of things that Taejoon didn’t know the context for—brief mentions of past favors owed and dues paid, but the gist of it was:

_Drop the case. Admit that you were just grieving for your son, and turned to wild conspiracy theories while mourning. You don’t have to sponsor us anymore; we can always find new ones. Take this money and we can never speak of it ever again. This was a mistake on our behalf—it won’t happen again._

Beneath all of this was the new chairman’s signature, as well as a blank line, where Kishou was clearly supposed to sign if he agreed to this deal. Taejoon eyed the pen just a little to the side, head spinning and ice forming in his stomach. 

The placement of these papers seemed deliberate: a silent warning to him that Kishou did not have to agree to help him, and could very much take this deal with Hammond instead.

It was making the feelings of paranoia he'd barely kept at bay resurface. _Why_ would Kishou agree to help him when this offer of a very large sum of money sat so tantalizingly on his desk? How had he managed to convince himself that coming here would help him, could lead to his own freedom when the truth was so _obvious?_ Why did he think that he could trust the very person that had abused and traumatized Octavio?

Taejoon stumbled a little as he moved to sit back down, feeling dizzy as reality came crashing down on him—he was one man, one simple man who fell into unfortunate circumstances, and Kishou Silva was a millionaire dealing with other millionaires. Corporations. _Money._

He was in over his head. He was going to _die._

He slid down in his seat, trying not to panic, trying not to lose what little control he had over himself as his breathing picked up and his eyes burned. He hadn't said goodbye to Octavio, had left Mystik on bad terms, and still didn't know Mila's whereabouts. He couldn't die yet. Not today.

He heard the security guards speak behind him, and the sound of the panel opening, but he didn’t turn to look, gripping the arms of his chair. His eyes darted around, looking for any point of escape, wondering if his metal body could survive the fall from this high up...

He could feel fear crawling up his spine as footsteps approached, taking root at the back of his neck, right where the panel was, waiting for him to be corrupted again.

Kishou Silva stepped into his line of sight, and Taejoon’s stomach seemed to drop sixty floors.

The older man’s hair had a lot more gray in it than when he’d last seen him, the past couple of months clearly taking its toll on him. He was dressed in a gray suit, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a rectangular object. He regarded Taejoon with something like disdain as he sat in his high-backed chair, face impassive, for the most part.

Taejoon stared at the other man, unblinking, and unable to breathe. He wondered if Kishou Silva knew that he didn’t speak Spanish, because if the other man started speaking in it, he would have a breakdown—on top of being nervous, he didn’t think he could handle not understanding what was being said to him, not during a moment so pivotal and nerve-wracking.

His breathing was picking up again, but he tried to calm himself down, swallowing heavily and sitting up straighter in his chair. His eyes were still glancing around on occasion, trying to scope out any potential attackers or exits, but he soon found himself distracted by the object the other man was holding.

An old-fashioned black shoebox tape recorder, in mint condition despite how outdated it was.

Kishou flipped a little switch on it—the red one—before reaching over and placing it right in front of Taejoon, the microphone angled towards him. He eyed the object, leg bouncing as Kishou Silva sat back in his chair, steepling his fingers together.

There was a long stretch of silence, Taejoon staring hard at the desk, mind reeling, before Kishou gestured to the tape recorder and said,

“ _Speak_.”


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws for this chapter:
> 
> some alcohol  
> passing mentions of drugs  
> octane gets hit on by some dude  
> a couple of mentions of throwing up  
> taejoon kinda has like a mild anxiety attack

When Octavio’s eyes flew open, he was alone. 

Not much time had passed between him dozing off and then jerking awake again; when he checked the holographic clock on his bedside table, it was still early in the evening. He'd been asleep for about forty-five minutes. Rolling off of the hotel bed, he gave a light groan as his left knee popped. _Ow._

Rubbing at his eyes, he called out, “Ajay?”, but no response came. Figuring that she had left, he walked over to the door that separated he and Taejoon’s rooms and opened it, but he was gone too. His lamp had been left on, and pretty much everything inside seemed untouched except for his bed, which looked as though someone had been stepping on it.

Coming to the realization that he had been left alone, Octavio scowled, nails digging into the wooden frame of the door. He wished that he had been woken up before they’d left for his father’s company so that he could at least provide _some_ form of support to his boyfriend, but apparently nobody had cared enough to rouse him.

He turned on his phone, typing out half a message to Taejoon, before deciding against sending it. His father hated it when phones went off during meetings, and he’d rather not piss the guy off when his boyfriend’s life was literally riding on him aiding him.

 _Ugh_ , he shouldn’t have thought about that.

Now anxious, Octavio walked in circles around his room, trying to think of something to do to keep his mind off of things. Maybe go down to the pool? Nah, he didn’t have a swimsuit, and it would feel stupid swimming by himself. Eat dinner? But he’d already shared some food with Ajay—which he hadn’t cooked very well, but she didn’t complain, so there was that.

He even turned on the TV, though he immediately turned it back off. He didn’t really have the attention span for such things.

He just wanted a _distraction_ , as the reality that his father was just around the corner was starting to weigh heavily down on him. He hadn't spoken to him since that day a week ago, but he was sure that after finding out that he was alive his relief had quickly turned into anger.

 _Why did you leave in the first place? What were you doing at Hammond? Why didn't you call us? You think I should help you when you chose some man over your family and friends?_ He could imagine all those words being spat at him now, and he shivered a little, the scar over his eye tingling.

Octavio eventually knelt down in front of the hotel fridge and pulled out a bottle of beer to examine it—the good stuff, nothing cheap. Drinking alone was kind of pathetic though, and really boring, but a drink did sound _really_ good right now. After a moment of careful consideration, he began to pull his clothes off, stumbling around his room in search of his suitcase.

Dressing himself in a black crop-top and a pair of shorts, he pulled his wallet from his jacket pocket and stepped into his shoes, making no effort to tie the laces. He opened up his door and emerged out into the hallway, where the eight or so men were still stationed. They all looked over at him in unison, which, _weirdos_.

“I wanna go out,” he announced, and then marched past all of them. He didn’t really give a shit if he was allowed to or not, but thankfully none of them tried to stop him. One did follow after him though, and when he stepped onto the elevator he joined him, so that was _annoying_.

He had expected this, however; he was sure that those men weren't for show. Whether they were to keep him from leaving or to prevent attackers or both, he had yet to find out.

Octavio looked up clubs near him on his phone and chose the one closest to his current location. When the elevator reached the hotel lobby he walked ahead of his bodyguard, making no move to hold the door open for him as he tried to figure out where this place was. Following a moment of deliberation, he darted into the evening crowd in an attempt to shake off the other man.

Heading down the street that would lead him to the club, he was chagrined to see that the dude was really good at his job, and had caught up to him already. _Ughhhh_. 

By the time he finally found the place, Octavio was really hoping that he wouldn’t follow him inside, but it looked like that would be the case. He supposed that he was going to be stuck with this man for the time being.

He scowled up at the bouncer as he handed him money so that he could cut in line, but as soon as he made a move towards the door he was stopped.

“I.D.,” the bouncer said.

Octavio dug into his pockets again, for the first time grateful for having this fake I.D.—he was sure that entering this place as ‘Octavio Silva’, so close to his father’s place of work, would raise a few alarms. After showing the bouncer his I.D. he was let inside, his bodyguard practically breathing down his neck as he did so.

Had Taejoon ever been this annoying? Sure, being protected and looked after like a child who couldn’t defend themself was infuriating, but Taejoon had never been like _this_ , right? Taejoon had been a pretty good bodyguard slash boyfriend.

He missed Taejoon.

A lot. 

He hoped that he was doing okay.

The club wasn’t as fancy as the one they’d gone to all those months ago; it was somewhat emptier, and the people in here were clearly looking for more than just drinks, but that was fine. He passed by three separate couples making out and a harried-looking man arranging pills on the bar counter before he sat himself down, ordering a Michelada from the bored-looking bartender.

His bodyguard at least had the decency to stand a little bit apart from him, leaving him alone as he drank in silence. He had come out to try and take his mind off of things by having a good time, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Taejoon, only a couple of blocks away from him. And Ajay had gone with him, hadn’t she? He couldn’t imagine how that would go with her attitude towards him right now.

The last thing Taejoon needed was Ajay interrogating him. He'd done his best to tell her about their relationship and what had happened to him, but he knew that it had been a lot to swallow, and he was pretty sure that she didn't even believe half of it.

Placing his phone on the counter beside his elbow, he typed out a message to her:

 _O. Silva:_ dont harass my boyfriend

 _A. Che:_ This is really the first thing you’re gonna text me after months of silence?

 _O. Silva:_ yup

 _O. Silva:_ leave him alone

 _O. Silva:_ he’s stressed out

 _A. Che:_ And you think I’m not?!

 _O. Silva:_ no offense chica but i think him being a robot is way more stressful than whatever youve got going on

He didn’t receive any sort of response after that. _Figures_ that he would get the silent treatment after coming back from the dead, but he still wanted to talk to somebody.

He considered messaging Carter, but decided against it for a couple of reasons; one, it was, like, four in the morning on Gaea. Two, he wasn't so desperate that he would start talking to a thirteen-year-old kid about his adult problems. Even Octavio knew that was inappropriate.

The evening passed uneventfully, for the most part. He ordered two more drinks before the bartender’s shift ended and he was replaced by a perky blonde woman who might’ve taken something before work, way too enthusiastic as she asked him if he wanted something to eat.

He ordered his fourth drink—a Mojito—feeling a little woozy as he did so. He should probably stop drinking after this, but he _still_ felt worry and fear thrumming beneath his skin, and he just wanted it to go away.

While he was waiting for his drink to be prepared he was approached by a man of about Taejoon’s height, with dark hair the color of rust and piercing blue eyes. Those same eyes raked over his body in a way that felt rather invasive, and when the man spoke it was in a purr. “Alone tonight, sweetheart?”

Narrowing his eyes at the nickname, he purposely made his voice lower, in case the other man had mistaken him for a woman, because who the _fuck_ calls random dudes they just met 'sweetheart'? Actually, scratch that, calling random women you just met 'sweetheart' wasn't any better.

“I’m not looking to pick anyone up, if that's what you're asking."

“Let me buy you a drink, at least,” the man said, and Octavio shifted away from him, uncomfortable. He really fucking wished Taejoon was here so that he could scare the dude off.

Now that he was thinking about it, how would his boyfriend react to someone else hitting on him? Was he the jealous type? That would be cute. He imagined his boyfriend getting protective of him, and felt his face heat up at the thought. Perhaps he had drunk too much after all.

But it should be him protecting Taejoon right now, not the other way around. This had been _his_ idea; his fault that the authorities knew that they had been on Gaea, and his stupid plan that had taken them right back to Psamathe and into his father's clutches.

The stranger ordered him a shot of Tequila in addition to his Mojito, but he denied it in case the other took it as an invitation to come onto him, his mood quickly turning sullen.

“Not looking for fun tonight?” The man asked.

Annoyed, because he was pretty sure that he had already established this, he said, “I have a boyfriend.”

“Why the hell are you here, then?”

“I wanted a drink,” Octavio snapped, frustrated, and by this time his bodyguard was approaching, menacing. The dude scampered off after one look, and he downed the Tequila once he was out of sight.

Octavio then ordered another, because he was trying to take his mind off of Taejoon, and he had a feeling that he would be needing a lot more to drink if he was to do that.

He stared down at his reflection in the bar, vision a little blurry as he brushed his hair out of his face. The bartender slid him another shot, and he tried not to think about Taejoon's fingers sweeping his hair back, out of his eyes. _Stop thinking about him._

He couldn't.

His leg bounced against the stool he was sitting at, body humming with the need to do _something._ He was antsy now, five seconds away from storming the Silva Pharmaceuticals building himself to make sure Taejoon was alright. Groaning, he buried his face in his arms, gripping his hair in his fists as he tried to _not_ get worked up by it.

He needed to do something. He just didn't know what.

* * *

Speaking had never been Taejoon’s forte. Eloquent sentences often failed him whenever he was put under pressure, and because of it he and Mila had gotten into many fights. He just wasn't very good at _speaking_ sometimes, and couldn't get his points or feelings across without his words failing him.

Now, he was bursting with things to say, but didn’t know where to begin and where to end. How to get it all out coherently and concisely. He spoke rapidly, unsure if his meaning was clear to Kishou Silva, but he was trying to get everything out there as quickly as possible. He felt like there was a ticking time bomb hanging overhead; that if he didn’t explain himself fast enough, if he didn’t tell the truth quickly...

The algorithm, Mila, the people chasing him, dying, waking up again, his programming, the hard drive, Irina’s computer, the party, the phone call, Adele’s I.D., the _lab._..

The lab.

Hans Brandt.

The Stalkers.

 _Octavio_.

Every word just seemed to take him back to those exact moments, even the ones he hadn’t been entirely present for—he remembered pinning Octavio to the ground so vividly, palm on his throat, his pulse harsh against his fingertips. Remembered the force with which he used against him, weighing down on him, watching his face scrunch up and his eyes widen in panic, bloodshot from the choking or the stim, he didn’t know, but...

Taejoon bit hard on his lower lip, bringing himself out of the false memory, taking a deep breath as he tried to stop thinking about it all. He realized just how bizarre he was about to sound; that he’d been briefly corrupted by an outside source, had attacked Octavio as a result, and a mysterious woman had come to warn them of an oncoming explosion. 

What made matters worse was that Taejoon hadn’t actually _seen_ this woman—only heard vague recountings from Octavio, and he wasn’t even sure if she was real. Mystik claimed she was, but it sounded too surreal to make any sense to Taejoon. Portals? Explosions? Yeah, _right._

He told all of this to Silva anyways, no matter how ludicrous it sounded, because he felt that if he left out large gaps of the truth he’d be in even more trouble. He was wringing his hands together, feeling somewhat like a schoolboy in the principal's office, except your typical principal usually didn't have the power to throw you to the dogs and cut your life short.

By the time he had finished, half out of breath and sweating beneath the blinding white lights of Kishou’s office, he felt as if he could cry. 

His life, laid out, right before the person who could save it or ruin it. He hated this situation, the way he was entrusting all of this information to Octavio’s abuser because he was his only hope at returning to a normal life.

What compromises would his boyfriend have to make while being here? What if he had to return to Kishou’s house, and wouldn’t be able to leave? What if his freedom came at the price of Octavio's?

He wouldn't be able to forgive himself if that was the case. He wanted to protect Octavio from the man before him, but now he wasn't sure if it was possible, and that was his fault. He had allowed himself to be brought here, desperate for a resolution to this chapter in his life, and was endangering them both by doing so.

He should've put his foot down. He should've stayed on Gaea.

Reaching up to wipe at his eyes with his sleeve, he kept his gaze fixed on the sleek desk before him, afraid to look up into his own doom. Several seconds passed, and after a considerable pause, he watched a hand reach over to the tape recorder and press the little _‘stop’_ button.

Fingers curling hard into his thighs—which he could feel now, but not as vividly as he would have in his previous body—he waited for a response, and when it came, it did nothing to ease the tension in his shoulders.

“You may leave.”

Jerking his head up in slight alarm, Taejoon stared at Kishou with wide eyes, mouth falling open to say something, but he didn’t know what. Maybe _that’s all?_ or, _so what are you going to do with me?_ He wanted to demand for an answer, a resolution to this excruciating night, but the words died in his chest and he snapped his mouth shut, feeling as though if he spoke another word he would cry.

By the time he stood up Kishou was sealing the tape recorder inside a clear plastic bag. His head was spinning, as if he had moved too fast, and his legs felt shaky despite the impossibility.

Kishou glanced up at him, saying nothing as he slid his desk draw open and dropped the plastic bag inside. He was once again struck with the desire to speak, but his words failed him. He rather felt like he was going to be sick, so he turned his back on the other numbly and walked away.

As he approached the opaque panel he had come through, there was a prickling feeling at the back of his neck. His fists clenched by his sides, and he was petrified that Kishou was going to do something to him while he wasn’t looking. The closer he got to the panel the more this feeling mounted inside of him—until about ten feet from the panel, when he had had enough, and twisted around rather violently, staring at the man behind him with wide eyes.

Kishou was still sitting at his desk, watching him, which was somehow almost as unnerving as the idea of him drawing a gun on Taejoon’s back. Taejoon didn’t take his eyes off of him, standing completely still as he waited for something, _anything_ to happen.

But nothing did.

The only thing that occurred was Kishou Silva leaning back in his chair, causing his breathing to hitch in nervousness at the sudden movement. The elder Silva cocked his head to the side and asked,

“What is your relationship with my son, Mr. Park?” 

Taejoon hadn’t gone into the nitty gritty details of he and Octavio’s general...well, _e_ _verything_ , because he wasn’t sure if it would earn him favor or distrust. If he said _yes_ , would Kishou be more inclined to help him, as one of his son’s closest friends? What if it had the opposite effect? What if Kishou viewed Taejoon as someone who had drawn his son in, brainwashed him, convinced him to hop planets without a goodbye?

He’d left descriptions of how Octavio came to help him and why purposefully vague, but confronted directly with such a question, he didn’t know if that was the proper choice. _If_ there was ever a proper choice at all.

What _was_ his relationship with Octavio? Saying that they were boyfriends would sound juvenile. They felt like more than boyfriends, after everything that had happened, but he didn’t know what word to apply to them, if _any_ word applied at all. He didn’t even know if this particular feeling was mutual between them—just that he desired Octavio, more than the simple word boyfriend could ever convey.

Nerves still on the fritz, Taejoon managed to say, voice rough, “I love him.”

Kishou’s lips curled up into a smile, though it didn’t seem to be a happy one. Sardonic, almost. “I see.”

Nothing more was said. They stared at one another until, neck still prickling, Taejoon slid open the panel and allowed himself to be pat down by the security guards, who apparently weren’t satisfied with just doing it once. 

The ride down the elevator seemed to go by quickly, despite how slow it had seemed going up. When he stepped out onto the street, jostled a little by passerby, he bent over to place his hands on his knees, retching a little as he gasped for fresh air. The inside of the building had felt so suffocating, and he was thankful to walk out of it alive, his hands shaking as he gripped the hem of his shirt to give himself something to do.

He wiped the sweat that had gathered on his forehead, wanting to get as far away from here as possible, but his vision was blackening at the edges and he felt like he was going to be sick. He stumbled around a little, looking for any sign of familiarity, and found Ajay chatting up a group of girls, a big smile on her face as he approached.

That smile quickly became strained when she noticed him, and pushing off the wall she had been leaned on, she told the girls,

“Nice meetin’ ya. Take care, now.”

“Thank you for signing my shirt!” The shortest girl squealed, and they dispersed, giggling amongst themselves. They passed by too close to Taejoon, who jerked away from them rather violently, wrapping his arms around himself. Ajay frowned and crossed her arms as she stood before him, meeting his gaze.

"Need ya to breathe."

He nodded wordlessly, closing his eyes as he tried to focus on the now. He was _alive_ , and the cool evening air was brushing against his cheeks. He was surrounded by people, laughing and talking and traveling in packs while he stood alone next to a woman who hated his guts. He stuck his hands into his pants pockets, wishing that he had his parka with him to provide comfort.

He shivered a little in the mid-September air, and opened his eyes to see Ajay still standing there, looking unimpressed with him. Mouth thinning into a line, he spoke as steadily as he could so that this nightmare would be over with.

"You wanted to speak to me?”

“I’ve got a lot to say, but I’ll try and keep it brief.” Ajay looked up at the sky, and the moon painted her face far older than it actually was. “It’s late, and you'd better get to bed.”

They both looked out at the pedestrians as he kept taking deep breaths to calm himself, and she waited for his nerves to settle. Though there seemed to be a lot of people out here, even to him, he knew that the number didn’t really compare to the amount in Suotamo. On Gaea.

Psamathe seemed like such a tiny planet in comparison, and he supposed that was true. It was an expensive planet for those who had enough money to throw around, and its working-class citizens seemed to be the minority—overworked so that its more plentiful elites could enjoy silly things like sapphires in their martinis and private drivers. Those people went ignored so that the narrative could focus on the fabulous, the wealthy, the beauty of its beaches untouched by war.

What an awful, detestable planet.

He wanted to go home.

Taejoon reached up to rub his temples, fighting back his migraine as Ajay asked,

"You care for Tav, right?"

He nodded, but when she didn't say anything else he added verbally, "I do."

"Good. Someone should." 

More silence passed as they watched a woman carry about a dozen shopping bags across the street by herself. He was much calmer now, which was good, but there was still a lingering sense of dread hanging over him like a thundercloud.

“Mr. Silva ain’t going to be straight with you,” Ajay said, not looking at him. “If he offers to help, there’s going to be an ultimatum.”

“I’m aware,” Taejoon said, thinking back to all the times Octavio had warned him of such, but Ajay flashed him an annoyed look at being interrupted, so he bowed his head apologetically.

“I’m just warnin' you now,” Ajay said. “He’ll go one of two routes. One: he’ll defend you to win favor with Tav, and when all’s said and done, backpedal and convince him that you’re bad for him. Have you deported back home—or worse, thrown in jail for something stupid.”

A little confused as to why she was telling him all this, he cocked his head to the side, but allowed her to keep speaking.

“Or two: he’ll let you two think you’re okay, but when this is all over, tell Octavio he’s gotta stay and take over the company as repayment.” Ajay kicked aside a couple of pebbles with her foot, not looking at him as he processed these words. He had pretty much expected the latter to happen, but the possibility of the first was daunting. 

“Why are you..?”

“I’m only tellin’ you this because I don’t want Octavio to get hurt.” Her mouth set in a hard line. “Not any more than he already has. He told me everythin’ about you two."

"Everything?"

" _Everything._ " Ajay tilted her chin up at him. "Sorry 'bout your sister and your body, but that's no excuse."

"I know," he said, folding his arms over his chest, wanting to defend himself from the tone of her voice; steady and calm, with a bite of accusation and distrust mingled inside, but he couldn't. He deserved all of it.

"Takin' over the company is the last thing Octavio wants, so I need you to prepare for his father’s stupid shit. I don’t know if I trust you yet, but you better prove yourself right to me.”

His fingers dug into his arms at those words, and he told her quietly,

“I’m sorry that I—”

“I don’t want an apology,” Ajay cut him off before he could get any further. “It’s him you should be apologizin’ to.”

And with that she turned on her heel and walked away from him, a musical bounce in her step. He stared after her, unsettled. Had he ever apologized to Octavio for what he'd done? He had, right? He distinctly remembered his boyfriend sitting at the top of that ladder; the way he said _I love you_ but still avoided Taejoon like he was a monster. It had hurt more than anything, but he had apologized, hadn't he?

But Octavio hadn't accepted his apology. There had been no _I forgive you_ said to him, but he had assumed that was because of Octavio's own guilt and self-blame. Why did Ajay say that? Had Octavio told her something he hadn't told Taejoon? Was Octavio waiting for another apology, a _real_ apology after the first one had been so stiff and distant?

Was he overthinking it? Did Ajay just think that he owed Octavio an apology after how much he had hurt him?

He heard Delilah call after her from behind him, and it managed to shake him free of his thoughts, but uncertainty still clung to him like a parasite.

“You’re not riding home with us, miss?” 

“Nah, Delly,” Ajay said, waving her hand in dismissal, and he wanted so badly to yell at her to stop and elaborate on what she had meant. “I’ve got a date tonight.”

* * *

When he got back to their hotel he came into his room, mind moving at a million miles an hour as he pulled his parka on. He then knocked on the door that separated he and Octavio’s rooms, because he didn’t want the guards to know that he was entering—but no response came.

With a frown he knocked again, speaking in a low voice, “Octavio?”

Still no response. Perhaps the man was still asleep, but he doubted it; Octavio was a light sleeper, always tossing and turning. Debating with himself, he eventually sighed and stepped back out into the hallway, addressing the first man he saw directly.

“Did he go somewhere?”

“He left two hours ago,” the man responded, not looking at him. 

“By _himself_?” He asked, alarmed, but someone else spoke up.

“No, Burke is with him.”

“Where?”

Nobody answered him. Frustrated, Taejoon repeated himself: “ _Where_?”

“I can give you the address,” the same man that had told him about Burke said. He had pulled a phone from the inside of his suit jacket. “But I’m coming with you if you go to him.”

“Fine by me,” he said shortly, and the man led him back to the elevator. Once they were on street-level he followed him around the corner, pulling the collar of his parka up so that he could keep his face at least partially hidden from everyone else.

Taejoon had no idea what would happen to him if he got caught out on the street—did Kishou have an excuse prepared if he was identified, or was he to be thrown to the dogs as soon he became an inconvenience? He probably should've worn a mask, but he was unable to think straight after the emotional turmoil that earlier had brought him.

They passed by several places—a cozy-looking bookstore; a packed ramen shop with a waiting line spilling out into the street; and a shady-looking club with a huge bouncer outside who glared at passerby.

They walked right past all of that and found themselves outside a twenty-four hour convenience store, which Octavio was just now exiting, a plastic shopping bag hanging from his wrist.

Taejoon knew instantly something was off when his boyfriend practically threw himself into his arms and slurred, “Heyyyy, babe.”

Glancing up at the man accompanying him—whom he assumed was Burke—the other shrugged and said by way of explanation, “He’s drunk.”

"You went drinking?" Taejoon asked him, slightly incredulous, and Octavio giggled, practically hanging off of him.

"I did, but it got sooooooo boring without you."

"What's that?" Taejoon gestured to the plastic bag on his wrist, and Octavio looked down as if he had forgotten about its existence already.

“Let’s go back to the hotel,” the shorter man stage-whispered to him, paying no mind to the guards that could very well hear him. “I wanna show you something.”

His boyfriend then grabbed his hand and started tugging him forcefully down the street, Taejoon stumbling a little, surprised by his drunken strength. He glanced behind him to see Burke and the other man following close behind, and it honestly felt like the two of them were being chaperoned, but he supposed that he deserved this.

At one point he had to spin Octavio around and lead him in the correct direction of the hotel, as he had been going the opposite way. By the time they got back to the elevator he felt _very_ awkward as his boyfriend clung to him in such close proximity to the other men inside. Not that he didn’t appreciate the feeling of Octavio against him, but public affection had always been something that embarrassed him.

He half-expected the guards to say something to him when Octavio fumbled with his keycard outside his door—perhaps tell him that he wasn’t allowed in there—but they all remained silent and stationary as Octavio got his door open and brought him inside.

“Okay, so,” Octavio hummed, kicking his shoes off and dumping the contents of his plastic bag onto the bed. “I am going to dye my hair.”

Taejoon stared at him, a little dumbfounded by this announcement. “You’re going to _what_?”

“Dye. My hair.” Octavio picked up a cheap box of hair dye, a rather violent-looking shade of neon green. “And _you_ are going to help me.”

Taejoon wanted to tell him a lot of things. _Can we do this tomorrow, you’re drunk, I’ve had a night and I want to sleep and stop freaking out,_ but his boyfriend looked over at him with puppy-dog eyes and it was over. He couldn’t argue.

So with a sigh, he took Octavio into the hotel bathroom, already feeling bad for the mess they were about to make. There was a jacuzzi, a bathtub, and a huge shower, all separate from each other, which... _rich people_. He read the instructions off the box, Octavio wrapping a towel around his neck as he did so.

He frowned at the number of steps required—he didn't remember there being this many—before he asked his boyfriend,

“Are you _sure_ you want to do this?”

“I’ve been wanting to,” Octavio said, swaying in his seat. He had a bag of chips in his lap, apparently starving. “So why not now?”

Taejoon smiled to himself, a little exasperated but fond all the same as he put the plastic gloves on. At least he would have something to keep his mind off the overwhelming guilt and anxiety that had plagued him just an hour ago, but he didn't know how long this distraction would keep it all at bay.

The bleaching process took a half hour, as every couple of minutes Octavio would whine _“owwww”_ and he would stop to make sure that he was okay. He remembered helping Mila dye her hair red and how she would complain every time he accidentally got some of the bleach on her skin, complaining that it burned, and he hoped that he wasn't hurting Octavio too much. He had done enough of that.

“Now we wait,” Taejoon said when he finished, grabbing the towel to dab lightly at the spots he’d gotten on Octavio’s forehead. “Do you want to wait to bleach your hair again? If we dye it this color now, it won’t be as bright.”

“I wanna do it tonight,” Octavio said, before leaning over to press a kiss to Taejoon’s cheek. His face flushed and he ducked away from him, trying to hide the fact that he was smiling, but that smile quickly faded as he sat on the edge of the bathtub, setting a timer on his phone.

He didn’t know what was going to happen to him. Every day had felt like his last recently, and it especially felt like that _tonight_ , but it was contrasted with the silliness of Octavio dyeing his hair neon green while drunk. He really wished that the other hadn’t gone out, afraid that something would happen to him even while he had a bodyguard tagging along. He wished that he had waited for him so that he could accompany him out and make sure that he was safe.

Running a hand through his own hair, Taejoon sighed, watching Octavio open up another bag of chips out of the corner of his eye. He looked funny with the bleach in his hair, all bunched up, and he recalled a distant memory of Octavio looking at himself in the mirror and remarking that he’d like to dye his hair green.

Taejoon had always wanted to dye his hair too, but he wasn’t sure that any color would look good on him. Perhaps when this was all over, he’d dye his hair just to see what it looked like. Maybe he would try a lot of things he’d always said he’d do but had never gotten around to doing. Your perspective on life changed when you were on your third chance at living.

And possibly last.

When the timer went off he gently guided Octavio’s head under the bath faucet, helping him rinse the bleach out while his boyfriend tapped his fingers against the bathtub impatiently. The dyeing process went slightly better than the bleaching, but not by much, and he accidentally smeared dark green liquid all over the pristine white sink counters. He felt very bad for the poor house-keeper who would have to clean up after them.

By the time they were done, Octavio was staring at himself in the mirror with wide eyes, as if mesmerized by his own appearance. Taejoon put away the hairdryer they had pulled out earlier, but looked up when he heard the sound of the other man slapping something. His boyfriend’s hands were on his cheeks, and his face was red.

“I look good,” he said.

“Green suits you,” Taejoon agreed, straightening up. Octavio looked over at him, face still flushed, and opened his mouth. He expected a _thank you_ , or maybe for him to ask how his meeting with his father went, but instead he said,

“I have to pee.”

With a shake of his head Taejoon left the bathroom, peeling the plastic gloves off and discarding them in the trash can. The smell of bleach seemed to follow him, and he lifted his jacket to his nose, taking a whiff. He would need to change.

He took out a loose black t-shirt and a pair of gray sweatpants—the closest thing he had to pajamas—and was just stepping out of his jeans when Octavio emerged from the bathroom again. His boyfriend froze when he saw him, and he suddenly felt self-conscious of his half-naked state, even if him being naked wasn’t a scandalous thing in this body.

Octavio stalked over to him, still staring as Taejoon tugged his sweatpants on. He was about to ask the other what was up when Octavio reached over and grasped his wrist, tugging Taejoon towards him.

What happened next was nice for about two seconds; Octavio kissing him on his mouth, something they hadn’t done in forever, sloppy from his own drunkenness but still enthusiastic all the same. Taejoon wanted to kiss back, to hold the other man close and force himself to relax after the night he had, but he couldn’t. Octavio wasn’t in the right state of mind for this, and neither was he.

Pulling himself away from Octavio, he placed his hands on his shoulders, and told him, “You’re drunk.”

“I don’t care,” Octavio hummed, trying to lean into him, but he kept him at a safe distance. “Fine. At least go to sleep with me.”

“No,” he said firmly. They had slept apart for several months now, and he didn’t want the first time they _did_ sleep together be while Octavio was drunk. He didn’t want him to wake up tomorrow morning and panic when he saw Taejoon next to him, not remembering the night before or the events that led up to it. He was already expecting the other man to be disconcerted when he woke up with a different hair color; he didn’t need Taejoon thrown into the mix.

He aided Octavio as he undressed, the other man struggling to get his shirt over his head. He then carefully helped him into his basketball shorts and a tank-top before guiding him into bed, placing a towel on his pillow so that none of the dye would rub off onto the sheets.

Octavio whined as he drew away from him, holding his hands out in the grabby motion he usually did to indicate that he wanted to be touched, but Taejoon just shook his head and threw the blankets over him.

“Tomorrow, if you want,” he told him.

“But I want you now,” Octavio groaned.

“See if you want me tomorrow, okay?”

“But...”

Taejoon bent down to kiss him on his forehead, just to get him to stop whining, and was rewarded with Octavio’s mouth snapping shut. “Tomorrow. Okay?”

“...Okay,” Octavio mumbled. Taejoon opened the door that divided their rooms, but hesitated before he left. He _really_ wanted to sleep with Octavio, hold him close like he hadn’t been able to in so long, apologize over and over for hurting him—but he knew that it wasn’t right to do so while he was in this state. It wouldn't count.

“ _Jalja_ ,” he told the room quietly, unsure if the other would hear him, and he received no response. Perhaps he had fallen asleep already.

Closing the door behind him, he stared at his own lonely twin beds, and bit back a sigh. Another night by himself, when he didn’t really want to be. Not after everything that had transpired today.

He supposed he had nobody to blame but himself.

* * *

When Octavio was woken up the first thing he did was roll over and throw up on the ground. His head felt like a jackhammer was drilling itself straight through his skull, and it only got worse when a voice said,

“My god, he’s hungover. And what did he do to his _hair_?”

“He’s gotta be there by nine,” another voice said, and he pressed his palms over his eyelids and groaned. “Tav, I brought you breakfast. You need to be out in thirty minutes.”

“Whyyyy,” Octavio moaned, and felt something press against his forehead—the plastic of a cold water bottle. Twisting the cap off and taking several sips, he tried to get the nasty, disgusting taste out of his mouth, but it just wouldn’t go away. Perhaps whatever Ajay had gotten him would help.

Peeling his eyes open, he saw that she had set a bagel with cream cheese on his bedside table, something they used to grab together before class during high school. Ajay had left the room, hopefully to get someone to clean up the puddle of sick on the floor beside his bed.

Feeling like death, he sat up all the way, brushing a few strands of his hair away from the corner of his mouth. His gaze found Irina’s across the room, where she was clutching a set of clothes to her chest and looking like she'd rather be anywhere but there.

“Um,” Octavio said awkwardly, voice coming out scratchier than normal. “Hi.”

“Hello,” she said stiffly. “I’ve brought you clothes.”

“For what?”

“Your father is holding a press conference in two hours.”

Oh. To announce his return, probably.

Crawling over to the opposite end of the bed so that he could avoid the mess he’d made, he stumbled a little as he got to his feet, legs feeling like jelly. He had vague memories of going out to get a drink last night and coming back here, but the fine details were lost. He was pretty sure Taejoon had been there, but he was nowhere to be found currently; he was probably asleep in his room.

Irina handed him the clothes, and he scowled when he saw that they were mostly white. A white button-up, white slacks, and black vest. He was so sick of seeing the color, but he dressed without complaint as Irina left the room.

It was really awkward being around her, considering he’d blackmailed her the last time he saw her, but he guessed he kind of owed this situation to her. If she hadn’t told his dad about he and Taejoon in the end, he never would have never figured out what was truly going on.

And speaking of which, he wanted to know how Taejoon’s meeting with his father went.

Opening up the door that separated their rooms, he peered inside, seeing that his boyfriend was curled up on one of the beds on top of the covers. After a moment of hesitation he crossed the room to stand beside the bed, looking down at Taejoon’s peaceful face—his pretty lashes and slack jaw, drooling a little onto the pillow. _Cute._

Octavio touched Taejoon’s shoulder and shook him gently, trying to wake him, but he didn’t stir. He resorted to poking at the other’s face like he’d seen the kids at the orphanage do countless times, and finally Taejoon let out a huff, rolling over onto his back and opening his eyes to glare at him blearily.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” Octavio teased as Taejoon wiped the drool away from his chin. He wondered if Taejoon had drank with him or if they'd met up after he had left the bar. “Get up, my dad’s making me go to a press conference.”

“How’s your head?” Taejoon yawned as he sat up, and Octavio shrugged as he turned on his heel, intending to go back to his room to eat that bagel and then brush his teeth—but he caught sight of himself in the mirror, and his eyes widened, because _what the fuck_.

His hair was green.

It didn’t look _bad_ , but it certainly didn’t look _good_ either. His hair had gotten quite long these past few months, the longest it’s been since he’d chopped it all off. It fell into his eyes, wavy, its texture looking a little off no doubt to the bleach that must have been applied. The green probably would have worked much better on his shorter hair.

Running a hand through it, he frowned at himself in the mirror as he tried to picture himself with his normal haircut.

“Do you not like it?” Taejoon asked from behind him, and he glanced over to see him on his feet, carding his fingers through his own hair in an attempt to tame it. “You were drunk last night and bought dye from the store.”

“It’s...okay,” Octavio said, unsure on how to convey his feelings about the length of his hair. “I just need a haircut.”

They fell into silence after that, before a knock came at Taejoon’s door, and they both frowned. His boyfriend crossed the room to peer through the peephole, and, still frowning, opened the door.

“Good morning,” came Irina’s voice, stiff. “I’ve brought you clothes. We guessed your size and have some back-ups in case they don’t fit.”

“I’m coming with?” Taejoon asked, and though Octavio couldn’t see his face from this angle, he sounded perplexed.

“You are. Please be downstairs in twenty minutes. Let me know if the clothes aren’t right.”

Taejoon shut the door when she left, and held up the suit he’d been given for Octavio to see. Gray rather than white, which was somehow worse.

“How’d it go last night?” Octavio asked as Taejoon started getting dressed, and he watched his boyfriend purse his lips.

“...Fine, I suppose.” He folded his sweatpants neatly, as opposed to Octavio, who had just tossed his pajamas into the corner of the room. “He didn’t really say anything.”

Octavio scoffed, which made his own head hurt. “Figures.”

He eventually left Taejoon alone to wander around his own room. At one point he stopped to administer his testosterone, as Ajay had brought him some last night in case his supply had run out. He knew she would make fun of him for forgetting his T entirely, but he was honestly just glad to have it again.

He then began to search his room with his bagel in hand, looking for a hairbrush or something. The puddle of vomit had been cleaned up so it smelled strongly like bleach, and this scent followed him even into the bathroom, where he saw green smears on the sink from his dye. Oops.

Octavio found a collection of pins and hair ties in the bathroom draw, and set his bagel aside so that he could do something with the green mess on his head. Taking a hair clip, he swept his hair back and tried gathering it into a bunch, but it was a little difficult.

He eventually managed to clip it all back, out of his face and in a tiny bun at the back of his head that would probably fall apart under any sudden movement, as it wasn’t quite long enough yet to stay, but it was getting there.

By the time Ajay had returned to get them both, they were ready. She smirked at him when he stood beside her in the elevator.

“Nice hair,” she said.

“Thanks,” he said back. “We look like Cosmo and Wanda now.”

He saw Taejoon frown. “Who is Cosmo and Wanda?”

“Oh, they’re like...” Octavio trailed off, realizing how stupid and childish he was about to sound. “Nevermind.”

Before they got to the car Ajay pulled him aside, fixing him with a stern look that made him feel like he was about to get a talking-to.

“I’ve got work to do for the Frontier Corps, so I’m packin’ up and leaving tomorrow,” she told him, and he bit hard on his lower lip at the news. He’d _just_ got her back, and to hear that she was going to be gone so soon left him feeling a little hollow inside. He felt like there was so much they had yet to touch upon, that they had yet to get back to normal after what had happened at the restaurant and everything that had occurred since, but he didn't voice any of this out loud.

He simply nodded, and said,

“Good luck, chica.”

“You’re gonna message me this time around, you hear?” Ajay said, flicking his arm with her finger. “Maybe when this mess is over, you can come see me on Solace. Meet a few of my new friends.”

“If you’re nicer to Taejoon, I’ll consider it,” he said, half-joking, but her face got a little more serious before she pulled him into a hug. It was brief, so he barely had time to comprehend it, but when she drew away she said,

“Be careful, Silva. Watch out for whatever games your father might play.”

“You’re preaching to the choir, dude.”

“And look after your little boyfriend, as well.” She took a few steps away from him, face still serious. “Call me if he hurts you again. I’ll take him apart.”

“Please stop threatening him,” Octavio said. “He’s right behind you.”

“Good.” Ajay rounded to face Taejoon, placing her hands on her hips. “ _Behave_.”

His boyfriend arched an eyebrow, but nodded all the same. They both watched her wave goodbye to Irina before disappearing down the street, heading in the direction of the train station. Octavio felt that hollow feeling of loss again, and it didn’t disappear even as he was shepherded into the car.

He’d attended many of his father’s press conferences before, standing beside him boredly while he announced the companies he was going to support or the miracle drugs he was in the process of making. He’d never spoken at one, though, and he was kind of nervous. He’d used to upload holovids of him doing stupid shit back in high school, and all the attention had felt nice, thrilling—but _this_ time he would be in front of probably a hundred people and their flashing cameras for a much more serious matter than going rock-climbing without a harness.

Delilah wasn’t driving them today—instead, it was his father’s personal driver Niko. Irina sat across from he and Taejoon, a handbag on her lap, and he realized just now that he’d never seen her in such nice clothing before. She’d always worn casual jeans and sweatshirts back at home, and sometimes he caught her in pajamas making herself a snack in the kitchen—but today she wore a neat pencil skirt and a ruffled-looking maroon blouse that clashed with her red hair.

“Are you coming, Irina?” He asked awkwardly. He’d almost said _‘Rina_ , like he used to, but he felt like that level of casualness between them was gone now.

“Your father asked me to be there,” she said, staring hard at her feet. “As the person who told him...the things you two did.”

Octavio glanced over at Taejoon to see that his face had flushed at these words, and he was staring hard out the window. He appeared to be much calmer than Octavio had thought he would be—after all, this was the same man who had panicked while being in a subway. But his eyes travelled down to where his hands were on his lap, fingers curled into his thighs and trembling slightly. He was nervous.

Octavio didn’t say anything, as Irina and his bodyguard were right there, but by the time they got to his father’s building she seemed eager to leave the two of them behind, exiting the car first and walking rapidly up the steps despite her high heels. Octavio followed Taejoon out of the car, but before his boyfriend could enter the building, he reached over and caught his wrist.

“Hey,” he said, and Taejoon glanced back at him, looking a little confused. “You okay?”

“...I’m fine,” he said, but Octavio could tell that he was lying. “Are you?”

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You’re going to see your father.”

Well, he’d been trying not to think about it. His fear over seeing the other man again had faded after staying at the hotel and dealing with people delivering messages for him instead of him coming to see Octavio in person. He hoped that it was going to stay that way—and besides, there wasn’t anything that his father could do to him today. Not under public scrutiny.

“It’s whatever, cariño,” Octavio said dismissively, and Taejoon looked doubtful, but he kept on going. “I know you’re freaking out. It’s gonna be okay.”

“It’s just...” Taejoon exhaled, running a hand through his hair, eyes darting around in that familiar manner of his. “Being in _public_. It’s making me anxious—especially because I’m going to be with you here. I’m afraid that we’re going to be attacked, or something. Once the authorities know I’m...”

He trailed off, eyes wide, and Octavio now regretted opening up this can of worms. He hadn't meant to make his boyfriend panic.

“Aren’t they going to keep me in custody, or something? Is that not standard procedure? They wouldn’t just let a suspected criminal wander freely.” Taejoon was pacing now, and Octavio could practically feel the paranoia radiating off of him in waves. _I'm sorry._ “I don’t know what’s going to happen and it’s freaking me the fuck out, Octavio.”

Now Octavio was getting anxious too, but shook the feeling off and stepped in front of Taejoon, causing him to halt in his pacing. He hesitated before wrapping his arms around his boyfriend's middle in a hug, feeling him relax beneath his touch, which, _thank god._ He wanted to protect Taejoon from all that stupid shit. He wasn't going to let the authorities take him away so easily; he'd defend him until he was dragged away, kicking and screaming.

When he tilted his head to look up at Taejoon he saw that the other was staring down at him, and he felt his face start to burn when he realized that he was doing in this in broad daylight, in the middle of the steps leading up to his father’s company. He was pretty sure his bodyguard was watching them too.

He didn’t want to let go, though; he liked having Taejoon in his arms, even if there was still that ever-present, nagging fear at the back of his mind as he felt the other’s cold fingers place themselves on his cheek. He copied this movement, reaching up to take Taejoon's face into his hand, brushing his thumb over that pouty bottom lip that he adored as he said,

"I won't let that happen."

Taejoon kept staring at him, and wow, he felt _really_ corny saying that, but he had to let the other man know that he wasn't going to fuck up. Not this time.

He watched Taejoon bite the inside of his cheek before he glanced away from Octavio, breaking their little spell. He drew away from him, adjusting his suit jacket before telling him, "Let’s get inside", and Octavio followed him up the steps into the Silva Pharmaceuticals building.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jalja--good night
> 
> SORRY FOR TAKING SO LONNGGGG between writing for rarepair week and also 2 fics at once and college essays and school assignments and also a bday fic for my friend i BUSTED my wrist a couple of weeks ago so i took a break to let it heal up. im back tho !!! and very excited for the next chapter!!!
> 
> don't be afraid to leave a comment! :3c


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws for this chapter  
> one very brief line that implies past self harm but its very vague and up to interpretation, still putting a tw here though  
> a couple of mentions of throwing up and blood  
> ALSO briefly implied domestic abuse

It had been quite a while since Octavio had entered this building, even before everything had gone down. His father used to take him into work whenever his nannies got tired of him and quit, as the maids always complained that they couldn’t get anything done while he was turning the mansion into his own personal skate-park—so his father had had no choice but to bring him with him.

That had been over a decade ago, though, and Octavio's trips to the company after that had been sparse. He was pretty sure the last time he’d been in here it was because his debit card had been declined while he was out with friends, and he had been _furious_ —storming the building, brushing past his father’s security guards because _what the hell did you do_ —but looking back on it now, he felt rather embarrassed.

_Stereotypical rich brat._

Anyways, everything inside seemed to be the same it had always been. Still white and sleek and almost hospital-like. Dull and boring, yet menacing all the same, especially when he saw the cluster of people awaiting them in the lobby; his father, two of his lawyers, Adele, Irina, and a bunch of other people that Octavio didn’t recognize. 

He noticed Taejoon tensing at the sight of all of them, and wanted to reach over and take the other's hand into his, but then his father was approaching him and he felt his entire body stiffen up, an instinctive feeling of _fight or flight_ taking hold of him.

The next thing he knew he was being swept up into a hug, his father patting him several times on the back as the flash of cameras went off. Okay, so some of those people were reporters. Figures.

Octavio didn’t hug the man back, body stiff as he resisted the urge to pull away, and he still didn’t relax even as his father let go of him.

“What did you do to your hair?” Was the first thing he asked him, and Octavio scowled, not meeting his eyes.

“I woke up and it was just magically like that. I dyed it, obviously.”

He watched his father’s nose snub a little at the sarcasm in his voice, but he didn’t address him further, instead turning his back and speaking to his lawyers in a low voice. Octavio recognized them; Mr. Sanchez and Ms. Ishida, though he hadn’t seen either of them since he was a kid. Mr. Sanchez seemed much older now, but Ms. Ishida looked the same.

More people took pictures of him. He was sort of used to it. It was Taejoon he was concerned about. Turning to check up on his boyfriend, he saw that he had taken a few steps back from the group, eyes wide.

"Octavio," he mumbled, barely moving his lips as if he didn't want to be heard.

"What?" He asked, already on edge, and followed his gaze to three people in the group: armed police officers, handcuffs dangling from their belts threateningly. All of them were locking eyes with Taejoon, and the first thing Octavio felt was indignation.

“What the hell?" Octavio burst out, loud, and his father looked back at him, clearly disapproving. “You said—”

“Calm down,” the older man interrupted as he gestured to the officers. “I’ve worked out a deal with them.”

“What do you _mean_ you worked out a deal?” That sinking feeling was making its return, and he knew that if he hadn’t thrown up earlier he definitely would’ve thrown up now. “ _We_ had a deal.”

He glanced at Taejoon again, who was still standing there, frozen, and made as if to to reach out to his boyfriend, but suddenly a hand was clenching his bicep and holding him in place.

“And I am honoring it.” The officers approached Taejoon cautiously, as if afraid he was going to explode, and Octavio was two seconds away from throwing himself in front of the terrified man. “You brought a wanted criminal and expected the police to let us shelter him without complaint?”

Octavio ripped himself away from his father’s grip and tried to lunge at the officers, but now Adele was grabbing at him too, much stronger than her husband. “Octavio. _Listen to us._ ”

But he wasn’t, _couldn’t_ , not as he watched Taejoon let himself be handcuffed, arms held out as the officers circled him. His boyfriend looked over at him with wide eyes, clearly terrified, but he made no move to escape or run away, even though Octavio _knew_ that he was stronger than all of those suckers, could fight them all off with his eyes closed. _Why isn’t he trying to run away? Why is he just standing there and_ taking it?

"Taejoon!" He yelled, and his father hissed for him to _stop making a scene._ He didn't know what the asshole had expected, if he had thought that he would be fine with his boyfriend being arrested and taken away when he had said—he had promised—

The officers escorted Taejoon, not out of the building, but into a different hall. Now confused, Octavio stared after them, trying to communicate silently with his boyfriend— _I’ll fix this_ —before he himself was being tugged in the opposite direction. 

Ms. Ishida walked alongside them as Mr. Sanchez went down the same hall his boyfriend had been taken down. Octavio was ushered into an empty conference room, the door slamming shut behind them and leaving him alone with his parents and lawyer. Furious, he rounded on his father and raised his voice.

“You said—”

“All I told you was—”

“He would be safe—”

“He is a criminal—”

“And you wouldn’t turn him over—”

“I didn’t.”

“ _You lied to me!_ ”

“Boys,” Adele barked, and he directed his anger towards her, eyes blazing and fists clenched. “Kozue, tell him what they’re doing to his precious boyfriend.”

“Good morning, Mr. Silva and Mr. Silva,” Ms. Ishida said pleasantly, gesturing to the empty chairs around the conference table, but nobody sat down. Unfazed, she continued. “Octavio, I assure you that this is the best route we could go down.”

“How?” He demanded, voice cracking in the middle, a familiar dryness and pain making itself known. It hadn’t felt like this since the trip from Psamathe to Gaea, and it was humiliating to let it sound like this in front of his father, but he didn't know how to put a stop to it.

“We have heard Mr. Park’s confession, Mr. Sanchez and I,” Ms. Ishida said, and though her voice was soothing, like gentle waves on the ocean, it only served to make him more agitated. “To avoid criminal charges in the sheltering of a suspect, we told the authorities we had Mr. Park. All they want is a confession of their own and to perform some tests.”

Octavio swallowed, staring at her as he tried to process all of this. So they had told the police where Taejoon was? How soon had they done so? When they arrived? Last night? This morning, even? If they had known _before_ they arrived, why were they not there to apprehend Taejoon as soon as they touched down? Why had their hotel not been stormed before this? 

And more importantly, what did she mean by _tests_?

“What tests?” He managed to verbalize, still scratchy. His throat had mostly recovered from what Taejoon had done, but in moments of emotion like these, it sounded hoarse again. He tried to fight it all back, but it was hard to what with his old man standing _right there_ and his boyfriend in fucking handcuffs.

“To make sure that he isn’t dangerous,” his father was the one who ended up answering his question, and Octavio bit on the inside of his cheek. “After this, he will be released.”

“They’re just gonna let him go?” Octavio sneered in disbelief.

“I have paid his bail.”

“As long as we meet the conditions of the judge, Mr. Park can walk freely.” Ms. Ishida cracked open the binder in her hands, giving one of the sheets of paper inside a cursory glance. “We have four requirements to meet.”

“Bail set at one million,” his father said, crossing his arms over his chest and giving him a look, as if he expected a _thank you._ Octavio swallowed, trying not to meet his eyes, and was spared from having to respond when Ms. Ishida continued where he left off.

“Which we have paid for, so that checks a box. Next, his confession and cooperation with the police to get to the bottom of what happened to him and Hammond Labs.” She flipped the paper over, scanning the words quickly. “The third requirement is passing a safety test.”

“And the fourth,” Adele spoke up, and all three of them looked over at her. “My men. Around him. At all times.”

So that’s what all those bodyguards were for, then. To protect everyone from Taejoon. He was angry over this, the treatment of his boyfriend like he was a ticking time bomb, but he was also disgusted with the tiny part of him that felt relief at those words. _What’s wrong with you?_

“I have honored my end of the bargain,” Octavio’s father droned, taking a step towards him. His tone was businesslike, back straight and eyes sharp, and Octavio felt a familiar childhood fear come back, haunting. “We will discuss yours.”

Ms. Ishida stepped between them at that moment, smiling lightly, and Octavio was thankful for her presence as she turned her lined face towards him.

"You two can discuss it later. For now, I need young Octavio to go over these.”

The lawyer handed him a stack of papers, the sight of which was already filling him with dread. _Reading...._

Flipping through the packet as the adults in the room talked quietly amongst themselves, he realized that it was a statement that had been prepared for him, as well as all the things he should say should he be asked any questions during the press conference.

Most of it boiled down to _I can’t answer at this time, I’m traumatized,_ but there were several about Hammond that were highlighted. Reading over them, he saw that the answers he was supposed to give didn’t quite match up with what had actually happened.

“Half of this stuff isn’t true,” he said, pointing out the lies in the paper. He flipped the pages to find more examples, and his eyes caught a particular sentence— _I was coerced by Park into going to Hammond Labs_ —and felt red-hot anger surge through him once again. “What the fuck?”

“You think you can get away with admitting that you were purposely breaking into Hammond?” His father snapped at him, and Octavio clenched his teeth, taking one step back from him cautiously. “You think people will _believe_ that your robot had his own free will until the very moment he started hurting you? Or that a woman using technology that hasn’t existed for decades came through a portal and planted the bomb?”

Octavio glared up at him, trying to think up an argument, but his anxiety about the situation was starting to make his head hum with white noise, his hands trembling slightly.

“Kozue and Gerardo took Park’s testimony and spun a story that will be more believable,” his father said, and Ms. Ishida nodded. “It’s why you aren’t to answer many of the questions—so I recommend that you _do_ memorize the answers you’re supposed to give.”

“What about the police?” Octavio asked. He wouldn’t pretend to know too much about law, but memories from when he had been obsessed with crime dramas as a teen resurfaced in his mind. “Wouldn’t they notice that his confession doesn’t match what we’re saying?”

“You’ll find the police to be very agreeable once certain circumstances are met,” Ms. Ishida said, voice still gentle and cool as she regarded him with a maternal look, as if she were his grandmother and not his lawyer. He picked up on the truth hiding beneath her syllables; the police had been bribed. “Our lovely friend Andrade is aware of that.”

The conference door burst open, and Octavio jumped, nearly dropping the papers as he did so. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Adele smirk.

“Sir, the news station is here,” a harried-looking man said, and his father swore under his breath before exiting the room swiftly. Ms. Ishida sat herself primly in the head conference chair as the door shut behind him, still flipping through the binder as Octavio was left alone with her and Adele.

“You need a haircut,” was the first thing Adele said to him, and he glared up at her.

“Dad hasn’t divorced you yet?” He bit out, still on edge from everything, and she smiled down at him in a rueful manner. He’d always hated how tall she was; nearly Taejoon’s height, and the heels made it worse.

“He almost did.” She flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder, and he noticed that her nails had been bitten down to the bed, like his. “Blamed me for your death, seeing as it was _my_ credentials that you used to get into the building. I had to quit my job to prove that I wasn’t conspiring with Hammond against him.”

Octavio’s throat was dry again, and the irritation he felt towards her fled quickly, now replaced by the increasingly familiar feeling of guilt. He hadn’t meant to make it look like she had something to do with his supposed murder, and the idea of his father, with his temperament, getting angry at her was...

“But I have a new job now,” Adele sighed, tapping her foot impatiently. “Pity that my first big assignment is _this._ ”

“Miss Hauser,” Ms. Ishida said, and the younger woman’s mouth snapped shut. “I believe Octavio needs time to familiarize himself with our new story.”

“Of course, Kozue,” Adele said smoothly, and opened up the conference door. “Marsh and O’Sullivan are outside if you need them.”

Octavio shuffled his feet awkwardly as he was left alone with the lawyer, looking down at the papers in his hands. The words seemed to swim before his eyes, and he felt a headache as he tried to get through a paragraph. It was all worded so professionally; he didn’t speak like this at all. He felt like he was reaching the end of his frayed and splintered rope.

“If you’ll sit with me, I can go over each question with you to help prepare,” Ms. Ishida said, patting the seat beside her, and he approached after taking a deep, shaky breath. “There there. Everything will be okay.”

“But Taejoon—”

“Will be fine.” She adjusted her graying hair in its bun, before sliding his papers over towards her and leafing through them to find a certain page. “Mr. Sanchez and I have done our best to ensure that you both make it out of this situation intact.”

Octavio had talked to her a few times in his childhood, and he always felt like she was an annoying grandmotherly-type of person. But he didn’t mind it so much now. It was rather welcoming with his shaking hands and difficulty breathing. 

She went over many of the questions with him, trying to get him to memorize each individual answer that strayed from the _“I can’t answer that at this time”_ formula, and by the time the conference door was opening again he felt a little less like throwing up. Irina stood in the hallway, two men who must be O’Sullivan and Marsh on either side of her. She looked uncomfortable.

“It’s time,” she told the two of them, and Ms. Ishida got to her feet gracefully.

“I think you’re ready,” she said as Octavio got up with her, body feeling numb. “Just remember: this is for Mr. Park’s sake.”

“Right...”

“And you want to protect Mr. Park, don’t you?”

His fingers curled into the packet of papers as she smiled at him, not knowing that her words had targeted a part of him that he'd been struggling with recently.

“More than anything."

* * *

Taejoon was caught between terror and an all-encompassing numbness that took hold of his body for the entire interrogation process. He was sat in a comfortable chair in the middle of a brightly-lit room, a coffee machine that smelled faintly of grounds in the corner—but he couldn’t relax, couldn’t keep his eyes from darting all around as one of the officers paced in front of him, asking questions.

They had explained to him in vague detail the four conditions that would lead to his freedom, but he was too busy panicking to pay proper attention. He felt like he had walked into a trap, body locked at the halfway point between acceptance and dismay, the want to _run away_ but also knowing that if he tried, he was good as dead.

Another man sat next to him; he was dressed in a crisp suit and sipped occasionally from a cup of coffee. Taejoon assumed that he must be a lawyer of some kind. The nametag on his lapel said _Sanchez_. He hardly ever spoke up, content to sit back and watch as Taejoon stuttered through his descriptions of his first death and second life.

His handcuffed hands rested on top of the table, metal fingers scratching against the surface as the interrogation went on. He was sweaty but also freezing cold, biting on his tongue several times as his teeth chattered—and after what felt like several excruciating hours the officer talking to him sat down and threw his hands up.

“I’m done,” he said. “Connell? Johnson? Any more questions?”

The other two officers shook their heads, and the first officer nodded.

“Alright then. Sanchez, take it from here. Omar will be with you in a min'.”

He left the room along with another officer, but the third stayed. Taejoon bit hard on his lower lip as he tried to calm himself down, voice hoarse after the hours of talking he had done both yesterday and today. Sanchez sighed as he set into motion, pulling a briefcase up onto the table and doing away with its locks.

“A quick debriefing, Park,” Sanchez muttered quietly. “Or would you prefer Taejoon?”

After months of wanting his name to be said by others, he realized that _this_ wasn’t the situation he wanted it to be. Not said by the people who could be signing his death warrant.

“Park is fine," he managed to get out, surprised by how steady and unfeeling his voice was.

“Kishou’s other lawyer, Ms. Ishida and I, have prepared a statement for you.” Sanchez pulled out a small binder with rings and passed it to Taejoon, who took it with some difficulty thanks to the handcuffs. “In short: disregard your story.”

Taejoon blinked as these words hit him. He felt like all of this stress had been for nothing, and that was maddening more than anything else. " _Why_?"

“Your situation is fantastical and at some points, unbelievable.” Sanchez picked up his cup again to drink some more coffee as Taejoon looked through the pages upon pages of information they had detailed for him, trembling fingers causing the paper to shake.

This new statement followed a lot of the same beats as his own story, the key difference being that they had explicitly outlined that he had _not_ been in control of his own body. They changed it so that he had convinced Octavio to take him to the lab so that he could find his original body, and a freak accident (the bomb) destroyed the server he was linked to, snapping him out of it.

_Faulty programming...little-to-no self-awareness...a factory mistake that led to increased levels of violence and deception...which are ultimately not the fault of the client, but the Hammond Robotics division..._

There were a few fundamental flaws with this version of events, ones that he wanted to voice out loud, but before he could read any further Sanchez got his attention again.

“This tightens up your story and takes some of the other elements out. Like the mysterious portal woman, for instance.”

“She’s real,” Taejoon mumbled quietly, even if he almost didn’t believe it himself.

“And I believe that _you_ believe that. However, a jury probably won’t.” Sanchez blew a puff of air between his lips, as if annoyed. “This statement is for the public and court only. Your confession is being sent to a judge— _our_ judge—for review. All they asked for was the truth, and we were free to embellish it in some places after.”

“So you want me to...” Taejoon glanced at the papers again, that numb feeling crawling up his metal spine and taking root in his brain. “Lie, and say I manipulated Octavio and kidnapped him."

“That sounds about right.”

“And you think that will _help_ me?”

“I pulled an all-nighter thinking this one up, Park. This case isn’t going to be easy.” Sanchez stifled a yawn behind his hand, before addressing him again. “You want to convince the world of Hammond Robotics’ atrocious acts?"

Realizing that he was waiting for a response, Taejoon nodded his head minutely.

"Then you strike fear in them. Some people would have shrugged this off, said that it would never affect them— _they’re_ not criminals, _they_ won't be turned into whatever _you_ are. But this way? This way they _all_ have something to be afraid of. Their neighbors. Their co-workers. Their employees."

“Me.”

“Yeah. You.” Sanchez fixed him with a calculating look that made him feel exposed. “The wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

He heard the door open up behind him and the officer in the room say _“Doctor”_ in greeting. He twisted around in his seat to see a middle-aged man in casual clothes standing there, holding a clipboard and a small bag. His smile was unnerving amidst this solemn atmosphere.

“Good morning,” the man said brightly, walking around Taejoon. “I’m here to perform some tests on you. Mr. Sanchez, you might want to stand back.”

Taejoon looked at the lawyer questioningly, words bubbling up in his throat, but he couldn’t find it within himself to say any of them out loud. Sanchez stood back alongside the officer as the doctor (presumably Omar) sat before him and began to lay out a wide array of medical tools and devices that he didn’t know the names of.

Taejoon was then poked and prodded all over his body. His elbows and knees were hit against with a little hammer as Omar nodded approvingly at his lack of reaction before shining a blinding white light into his eyes. That was just the normal, regular doctor-visit stuff. It got weirder when he stood up and pried open the panel on the back of Taejoon’s neck.

“Port is a little scuffed,” Omar commented, and he fought back a shiver as he felt fingers dance along the metal. He felt the urge to flip the man over his shoulder, but knew he would be thrown into a jail cell forever if he acted on it. “From someone being a little too rough. No internal damage, though.”

Taejoon’s entire body froze when he felt Omar stick something into him. His jaw dropped, and he tried to speak, but couldn’t. Terror overtook him for the nth time today, body trembling with unease and extreme discomfort, but it passed as soon as Omar took the thing out. He jerked out of his seat with a shout, landing on his hands and knees as he looked up at the doctor who was still smiling at him.

“No malicious software detected,” Omar said, unaffected by Taejoon’s reaction. He looked to his lawyer for help, but Sanchez didn't say anything, staring at him as he tried to recover from the invasiveness of it all.

"Y-you..." He stuttered out, not knowing what he was trying to say, if he was asking for help or for Omar to leave him alone.

“One more test, and then you’re all clear.”

Taejoon was still on the floor, panting and with sweat rolling down his forehead, but Omar didn’t care or wait for him to stand up. He flipped some switches on a rectangular device that he had brought, and intense pain burst through Taejoon’s skull. 

He let out something akin to a scream, but it was too mangled to truly sound like anything. He gripped his head, metal fingers digging into his temples as a burning sensation took root behind his eyes. Everything was on fire, every nerve and every pore on his face searing hot. He felt like his eyes were about to burst out of his head.

It kept going, body twitching and jerking as he tried to keep a clear head, but it was impossible when it felt like it was being crushed by a hydraulic press. He wanted to cry, but it was too painful to do so. He just wanted it to _stop._

It all came to an abrupt halt after what seemed like an eternity, but was realistically only a few seconds. He had curled up onto the floor, trying to make himself seem as small as possible, and only curled up even more when he heard,

"Get up. You're fine."

He couldn't move on his own yet, and he heard Omar sigh before he was being forcibly pulled into a sitting position, every component of his body groaning in protest. He felt something trickle down his face, and Omar handed him a tissue before packing all of his stuff up into his bag quickly.

“Everything’s good,” he said as Taejoon pried his eyes open, the lighting of the room seeming harsh and unforgiving. "Call me back if it keeps leaking."

“Thank you, Doctor,” Sanchez said, and there was the sound of the door opening and shutting again.

Taejoon still sat motionless, breath coming out in sharp pangs that made his chest hurt. He felt that if he moved he would fall apart, barely held together at the seams. He stared down at the tissue in his hand, unable to comprehend the feeling of it or its purpose as a sense of vertigo took hold of him. He was going to be sick.

Sanchez knelt down in front of him, and when Taejoon dragged his eyes up to meet his, he looked impassive.

“Your first court hearing is on October 1st,” Sanchez told him, voice quiet, but it seemed to sting something deep in his brain. “I would memorize your statement. We’ll convene with my partner before then.”

Both he and the officer finally left the room after these words, and Taejoon was left by himself, staring blankly at the wall cabinet across from him. He eventually lifted the tissue to his nose, wincing when he pulled it away and saw the slick black substance soaking through it.

Everything hurt. Not just his body, but the fact that he would have to pretend again. Pretend to be a monster who had hurt Octavio, tore him away from his home planet after convincing him to break into a dangerous place without telling anyone. A faulty android whose programming failed and led to innocent people getting hurt.

But that was all true, wasn't it?

Taejoon reached up, dragging the papers off the table before letting them fall into his lap. He let his hand go limp by his side again, staring unblinkingly at the words printed neatly before him. Maybe they lied about him not having control, but that made his actions seem far more forgivable.

If everyone knew that Taejoon had had his own free will beforehand, had imagined hurting Octavio and killing him if it meant his own freedom, if everyone knew that Taejoon had taken part in cooking up a plan to break into Hammond Labs and steal and ultimately _hurt_ Octavio, then...

He picked up the papers by the corner and set them somewhere else, before lowering himself slowly to the ground, laying on his side as he focused on the fibers of the carpet by his face.

He knew that the real focus should be on his own experiences; the torment of living in this new body, forcibly stuffed into a metal suit after being ripped away from his life. He was sure that somewhere in those pages they had him describing how it was to live as a shell of a human being, graphic in detail and uncomfortable to hear. But he couldn’t think about that.

All he could think about was how much he had hurt Octavio. How pretending that he had been a soulless being without control of his own actions was far more forgivable than the truth. And maybe it _was_ true. Everyone was certainly acting like it.

His eyes were burning with tears, but he didn’t know if it was because he hadn't been blinking or because of something else entirely.

Taejoon stayed like that for a while. So long that the motion-sensor lights went out, leaving him in near-complete darkness punctuated only by the blinking green light on the coffee machine. He didn’t know how long it had been since he’d entered the room, but he didn’t want to get up to check the time. He still felt exposed like a wire after those tests, and was content to let the world wither and crumble around him.

When the door opened and the lights flickered back on, he didn’t move. There was silence for quite a while.

Then, an amused voice asked,

“Taking a nap?”

Taejoon’s fingers curled against the carpet. _Octavio._

“Come on...”

His boyfriend approached, untied laces appearing in his vision, before he knelt down and touched Taejoon’s shoulder gently. Octavio looked pale and exhausted, but there was still an amused tilt to his lips as he looked down at him, though it quickly faded as he asked, sharp, “What happened? What’d they do to you?”

Taejoon couldn’t speak, and didn’t even try to. He braced his palm against the ground, taking a long, deep breath, before pushing himself up. It wasn’t painful to do so, but his body felt heavy like lead. He sat across from Octavio, who was clearly concerned. One part of him appreciated it, melted under the attention of his boyfriend. The other part of him told him that he didn’t deserve it.

“Come on...up...”

Octavio took his hands into his, and Taejoon stared down at them, trying to commit every detail of them to memory. Small hands, at least compared to his, with faint scars on his knuckles and bitten nails. There was a mark on his thumb, an old scab that had been picked at and didn’t quite heal all the way. Going up further, there were smaller scars on his forearms, ones they’d discussed but never gone into the gritty details of. Amidst the mess of harm were several freckles dotting tanned skin, and Octavio was so fucking _human_ , and he was not.

Not anymore.

“What’s with you?” Octavio asked him as they stood, and Taejoon let out a shaky exhale, trying not to look into those worried hazel eyes. “Was it the...they said they were gonna do tests on you, did they hurt you?”

Octavio then cupped his face like he had earlier, turning his head this way and that as if looking for any sort of mark on his skin, but Taejoon took a step back, out of his reach, and finally managed to speak.

“I’m fine.”

Octavio stared up at him in disbelief, before visibly deflating and looking away, an unreadable expression on his face.

“We can talk later," he decided, before bending down to scoop the packet up, looking at it with clear distaste.

“Ew, look at this shit,” he said, clearly trying to get a laugh out of him or something, but when he didn’t receive a response he just sighed and reached out, taking Taejoon’s hand into his again. He let himself be led down the sleek white hall, staring at the spot between Octavio’s shoulder blades as he was escorted out.

There weren’t so many people here, now. The white room was brightly lit, the signs of Psamathe’s early sunset already in the sky, though it wasn’t sinking quite yet. Just outside, news vans were pulling out onto the street, a dozen or so people still milling about. Octavio was chattering away, something about _took forever_ and _so many fucking people._

They stopped once they were out in the main lobby, and Taejoon looked up from the floor to see that the shorter man was looking back at him, mouth pressed into a thin line.

“Tae,” he said out loud, and he felt something rise in his throat. An unrecognizable emotion, an amalgamation of ones like regret and distress and exhaustion. “Seriously, can we...talk?”

“At home,” he mumbled thickly, before correcting himself. “Hotel.”

Octavio opened his mouth to say something again, but it quickly shut as his eyes drifted to some point over Taejoon’s shoulder.

“Good afternoon,” came Kishou Silva’s voice, and Taejoon didn’t react beyond turning his head a little. “Park, I’ve arranged for a car to take you back to your room.”

“What about—”

“I wanted to talk to you,” Kishou cut Octavio off, and his boyfriend’s eyes widened just a bit, fingers tightening around Taejoon’s wrist. “Father to son. A necessary discussion.”

“But...”

“I thought you were dead for months, Octavio. The least you can do is talk to me. Just for tonight.” Kishou placed his hand on Taejoon’s shoulder and steered him out of the way so that he could address Octavio more directly. “I’ll even order your favorite food.”

Octavio glanced over at Taejoon, something close to pleading in his eyes, but Taejoon didn’t want to speak up or intervene, too shell-shocked and numb to be of any use to anyone.

That was right. Kishou had thought Octavio was dead. Because of him. 

Because Taejoon had hurt him.

( _This is all your fault._ )

“Why can’t Taejoon come?”

“Taejoon is not my son,” Kishou said, and hearing his name come from that man made him feel worse somehow. “Park, the car is waiting for you. Outside.”

It took him a moment to realize that he was being dismissed. As he brushed past them his head was filled with a distant drone that seemed to vibrate the base of his skull. He wanted to get out of here as soon as possible, but he came to a stop before the glass doors, knowing that he wouldn’t feel right without addressing Octavio before he left.

He turned back to see his boyfriend staring after him, brows furrowed, and his expression didn’t change even as Taejoon said,

“See you.”

It sounded hollow, even to him. 

Delilah drove him back to the hotel, the trip a blur, and once he was inside his room he collapsed onto one of the twin beds. His TV had been left on from when he'd gotten dressed in the morning, the news discussing _him_ and Kishou unexpectedly taking on his case, but he could hardly muster up the energy needed to turn it off. A bone-tired feeling permeated throughout him, poisonous and chilling.

He was _exhausted_. He’d been through so much in the past months; it was approaching one year since he’d woken up in this new body, and almost two years since he’d first died. It was a miracle that he hadn't collapsed due to stress yet, especially after today's events.

He had thought that people finding out the truth about him would have them treating him like a human, but the way everyone had disregarded his clear pain as he was tested on stung. It wasn’t that these people were unaware of his true nature—they just didn’t care. He was a human being, but nobody saw him like that. He was regarded as some freak of nature, an imitation of a person who hadn't quite achieved the desired effect...and maybe they were right.

Tears stung in his eyes again, a thick, heavy feeling rising into his chest and throat. It was suffocating, and he found it hard to breathe. In addition to that feeling he also had a headache, and it didn’t get any better when he finally broke into tears, trying to muffle his cries with his pillow.

Taejoon wanted Mila back. He wanted his shitty apartment with its leaky pipes back, he wanted his weekend lunches with Mystik back, he wanted to watch the kids grow up and learn and get adopted into loving families. He wanted to feel hungry again. He wanted to experience true intimacy. He wanted his _life_ back.

He was tired of going through all of this, was tired of feeling lesser. He wanted people to see him, talk to him, interact with him like he was a real person. He was Taejoon Park, some computer nerd going into I.T. who liked ramen and pizza and drawing and stupid k-pop bands. He had had a life. He had been _someone._

But he wasn't that person anymore. Hadn't been for quite a while. He tried to remember the project name assigned to him when he'd first looked through those files... _Project/Crypto_ , right?

He wasn't Taejoon Park anymore. Hell, he wasn't even Hyeon Kim. He was an empty shell named _Project Crypto_ , an empty shell who still felt the full range of human emotion even though he wished that he didn't.

He eventually rolled over onto his back so that he wouldn't make any more of a mess on his pillow, hiccupping as he scrubbed his hand over his face, sticky with tears and snot. He laid like that for a long time, maybe an hour, staring at the ceiling and feeling everything at once. The sun set, bathing his room in a red-orange glow that seemed to burn his retinas, but he didn't close his eyes against its rays. Just kept staring.

When Taejoon got to his feet he shuffled numbly towards the bathroom he’d been provided and started filling up the tub. He normally hated taking baths, but he didn’t want to stand up for a shower, afraid that he would collapse if he did so.

He sat in the tub for so long that even though he couldn’t exactly feel the temperature, he knew that the water had gone cold. He toweled off afterwards and dressed in his pajamas again, discarding the gray suit he’d been given into a pile on the floor. Normally he would have folded his clothes, but tonight he couldn't bring himself to do it.

He almost went straight to bed, but hesitated before crossing the room to the door that separated he and Octavio’s. He knocked on it and called his boyfriend’s name, but there came no response. Perhaps he was still with his father then.

Guilt came flooding back to him at this thought. He’d left Octavio alone with the other man despite knowing how anxious he’d been about returning—how could Taejoon just have abandoned him so easily? He should have insisted on staying even if he felt like shit, even if he wasn’t emotionally or mentally or even physically ready for it.

What if Kishou was angry with Octavio, and pinned the blame for this entire situation on him? What if Octavio was trapped up there with his father, with no outlet for him to release his anger? What if a familiar scene was playing out back at Silva Pharmaceuticals? 

(Octavio, curled up in pain. Octavio, writhing beneath him. Octavio hurting.)

 _Stupid stupid stupid,_ he thought to himself, throwing his parka on and stepping into his shoes. Making sure that his knife was secure in his pocket, he stepped out into the hallway and managed to mumble out that he was going to Silva Pharmaceuticals. Two men tailed after him, no longer trying to be subtle, but that was fine. He recognized that it was for everyone else’s sake.

Thankfully, the hotel they were staying at wasn’t very far from the building, so he wouldn’t need to walk outside and feel everyone’s gazes on him for too long. The flashing electronic wanted posters plastering his face everywhere had been replaced with regular product advertisements, so hopefully he wouldn’t be recognized. He couldn’t handle that on top of everything else.

Pushing through crowds of people and fighting back the sensations assaulting him on all sides, his headache made a return as he rounded the block; starting dully at first, a pulse in his temple that grew steadily more pounding with each step he took.

He paused outside that same convenience store that Octavio had bought his dye from, wondering briefly if he should get pain medication, but he didn’t have any money on him, so he clenched his jaw and bared with it. 

Taejoon was just crossing the street when he stumbled a little, tripping forward. He was not the only one—a couple other pedestrians had bumped into each other or fallen over as well, and he heard several curious voices and exclamations. Then, a rumble beneath him. He saw the bodyguards that had been tailing him look at each other with matching grave expressions. 

Taejoon had just pulled himself to his feet again when a _boom_ so loud and impactful that it made him fall over again erupted, not very far from him. The eerie sound of shattered glass raining down on the pavement, along with several people screaming, made him scramble to his feet, already fearing the worst.

Silva Pharmaceuticals was one of the tallest buildings on this side of the city, and it was easy to see the smoking structure of it from this distance. Dread forming a pit in his stomach, Taejoon bolted forward without thinking, shoving several gaping pedestrians aside as he raced towards the source of the noise despite how much his head hurt.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck _fuck_ — _Octavio_ —

When Taejoon saw the state that the building was in, he nearly cried. The glass windows on the first ten or so floors had been blown out, and a good portion of the windows above it had been cracked. There were several small fires from what he could see, but nothing too concerning yet. He was more worried about the collapsing structure; several corners of the floors had fallen away, exposing desks and computers and collapsed beams. 

Papers fluttered through the sky, several people covered in ash screaming at civilian heroes that there were still more people inside. He tried to pick Octavio out in the crowd, looking for that bright neon green, but there was no sign of him. He shoved several people aside, robotic strength sending them toppling over like they weighed nothing as he approached the smoking building. 

He was sure that the men following him were shouting at his back, yelling to _stay away_ because it was dangerous, but he tuned them out. He had tunnel vision; all he could focus on was Octavio, and making sure that he was safe.

Droplets of blood were spattered across the floor, and pieces of fabric hung from the mostly-shattered doors, evidence of people injuring themselves as they ran from the fire.

He stepped through the glass, several shards snagging on his parka sleeves, but he didn’t care and tore himself away with ease. The glass didn’t hurt. Not in this body.

Taejoon’s eyes scanned the area, looking for any sign of life, but it was ominously empty in here, the only sound being sirens and the spray of water from a destroyed fire hydrant. He would check the two conference rooms down here for Octavio and his father, but if he came up empty he would likely have to go all the way to the top floor: Kishou's office.

He kicked down a pair of wooden double-doors with ease, the lights overhead flickering and illuminating an empty room, the one he’d been curled up in earlier. The coffee machine was on the floor, grounds staining the cabinet it had been perched on, but there was nobody inside.

The other conference room wielded the same results, and with another spike of dread he realized that he would have to go up to Kishou’s office. The elevator doors looked crumpled, and he highly doubted it was usable. He needed to climb the stairs.

Taejoon felt eerily calm as he jogged up the steps two at a time, the panic and fear and worry placed on a back burner as he focused on his true goal; Octavio. He’d read about it somewhere—how some people stayed calm during a crisis as a defense mechanism. He supposed that was what was happening now, hyper-focused on getting his boyfriend back despite the pounding in his head and the pulsing behind his eyes, the flames licking at his heels and the ominous groaning of the building beneath his feet.

Taejoon went through the door of each floor he climbed, keeping a lookout for any signs of life. Two people passed by him on the seventh floor, a weeping woman hanging from the neck of someone who was covered in so much ash their gender and face were indiscernible. They’d clearly been coming in and out of the building for a while, and their blue eyes flickered over to Taejoon as they brushed past each other, but neither of them said anything to one another.

He moved faster after each floor came up empty, still no sign of his boyfriend anywhere, and the anxiety inside of him started to mount. The calm he felt was keeping a lid on it all so far, but he knew that if he didn't find Octavio soon he was going to freak out.

The smoke got heavier the further up he climbed, and Taejoon zipped up his parka all the way to cover his nose with its collar as he squinted through the dust on the sixteenth floor. He saw a motionless lump laying on the floor, surrounded by rubble, and quickly approached as he recognized the red hair, even though it was far more dull than he was used to seeing it.

He turned Irina over and she started coughing violently, hand jumping to clutch at her throat.

“What happened?” Taejoon asked sharply, helping her sit up, and it took her a moment to catch her breath.

“I d-don’t know,” she wheezed, tears carving clear tracks through the dust on her cheeks. “Mr. S-Silva and I were talking when—”

_Mr. Silva and I._

“Where’s Octavio?” He cut her off, the panic becoming a little more pronounced in his mind, and with wide eyes she stared up at him.

“Octavio left,” she said. “Right before it went off.”

_Octavio left._

Relief flooded him, so much so that he could have collapsed right then and there. He helped Irina get to her feet, slinging her arm around his neck as he used his free hand to dig around in his pocket for his phone. He clicked on that _stupid_ name— _Sexiest Man Alive_ —and held his phone up to his ear as he led her back down the stairs, going slow due to her ankle, which had apparently been sprained in the chaos.

He wondered where Kishou had gone if she had supposedly been with him for the explosion—had he been rescued already, or did he run off by himself to save his own skin? He wouldn’t put it past the man, and his dislike only grew with each step down the stairs.

His phone rang and rang and rang, but by the time they reached the fifteenth floor it had gone to voicemail. Frustrated, Taejoon dialed the number again, hoping that Octavio would pick up because this was the absolute _worst_ time to not be answering his goddamn phone. Irina mumbled something about being in pain, and with a hefty grunt he shifted her a bit so that she was leaning against his back before lifting her into the air. Her arms curled around his neck, and he handed her his phone.

“Keep calling that number,” he said, and she did so without protest. He could hear it ringing as he carried her down the stairs, thankful for his ability to keep upright and balanced despite the weight on his back and the slippery, ash-covered stairs. The heat had gotten a little more intense, but he couldn’t really feel it—the smoke was unforgiving, though, forcing its way into his lungs and making him to cough.

Irina kept calling Octavio for him, but by the time they got to the ground floor it had gone to voicemail for the fifth time. Someone was kicking out the glass in the doors to make it easier for people to pass through, and another person was trying to pry open the elevator.

Firetrucks were just pulling up in front of the building, the people in gear shouting for the civilians to get out of the building and let them handle the crisis. Taejoon set Irina down, knowing he wouldn’t be able to carry her safely through the shattered doors. She pressed the _‘call’_ button again for him, and he took his phone from her with a quiet muttered thanks.

She stepped through the doors and practically collapsed into the arms of the person who had been kicking the glass out, and they started dragging her down the steps. Taejoon moved to follow, but his entire body stiffened when he realized that, over the sound of sirens and the spray of water and screaming people, he could hear music playing.

_No, not music..._

He stared out into the crowd, eyes wide as he frantically searched for a sign of green hair, but he found nothing. The firefighters were approaching, gesturing for him to come out, but he stumbled away from them, breathing getting shorter and shorter. He swore he could hear it, wasn’t imagining things—that stupid song Octavio had set as his ringtone because of his past music taste, playing faintly somewhere.

He whirled around, voice dying in his throat as he met the eyes of the person trying to open the elevator doors.

“There’s someone in here,” the guy said frantically, and Taejoon felt ice form in his veins. “Their phone—I can hear it—”

The rest was a blur to him. He didn’t remember dropping his phone and racing to stand beside the stranger, didn’t remember forcing his fingers into the dented grooves of metal and using every bit of robotic strength he had to force them apart. Didn’t remember being yelled at to leave because i _t was dangerous for people to be in here,_ but what did _they_ know—he wasn’t human, hadn’t been for a long time, and the heat wasn’t affecting him. The smoke was only a minor inconvenience.

When he finally managed to pry open the doors wide enough for him to squeeze himself through and check inside, he found that he had to duck to avoid hitting his forehead, the elevator itself crumpled and falling apart. He could see sparks above him, metal twisted and melting, and a pile of rubble. Someone was slumped inside, half-sitting up against the wall, and he took note of green hair plastered to skin due to sweat and dust.

“Octavio,” he managed to say past the blockade in his throat, but received no response. For all intents and purposes, his boyfriend looked like he was sleeping. There was a fresh cut on the side of his throat, blood a stark red against his dusty skin, perhaps caused by the wooden elevator handrail that had splintered into a thousand pieces around him.

Taejoon reached into his pocket for his knife, moving on autopilot—he would cut a part of his sleeve off and press it to the wound to staunch blood flow for now, and then work on removing all of the rubble inside—but a hand placed itself on his shoulder, and someone told him,

“You need to get out of there.”

“That’s my boyfriend,” he said numbly, shrugging them off.

“Sir—”

“But Octavio...”

“We can get him ourselves,” the woman said, sounding pleading. “There are paramedics outside. Please go get yourself checked out.”

Taejoon was hardly listening, cutting his sleeve off before kneeling down to wrap it around Octavio’s neck. He touched the back of his boyfriend’s head and when he drew his fingers away, they were coated in blood, red against black. The coppery scent seemed so sharp, even amidst the acrid smell of smoke.

The firefighters eventually man-handled him out of the elevator and into the arms of someone who he initially mistook as a police officer but soon realized was an EMT. They dragged him outside, sitting him in the back of an ambulance and wrapping a blanket around him. He didn’t know its purpose, but he kept it wrapped tightly around himself as he stared, unseeing, at the chaos unfolding before him.

He didn’t know why this had happened, or how.

No, scratch that, he knew _exactly_ who had done this and why. He would by lying to himself if he said that he didn't. It couldn’t have been anyone else other than Hammond, trying to rid themselves of this court case by taking out several of its keys players—but that was so stupid, why would they do something like this the day of the press conference? People would instantly assume that it had been them, they had backed themselves into a corner, made themselves the prime suspects...

These thoughts soon fled from his mind, leaving behind an empty shell as the tension in his shoulders eased. He tried to process everything that had just happened in the past few hours but it was difficult to. His head hurt so much, and it only got worse when he realized that he could have prevented Octavio from getting hurt if he had gone with him, if he had been able to protect him in the elevator the moment that explosion had gone off.

His bloodstained fingers curled into the blanket on his shoulders as he watched several stretchers carry out people trapped inside the building. Any one of them could have been Octavio, but he couldn’t get a proper look at their faces. He didn’t even know if he wanted to.

His eyes started to burn for the nth time that night. The sound of sirens had grown to nothing more than a distant echo. He scooted back further into the ambulance before laying on his side like he had earlier, using the blanket to shield his face from the world, and began to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sol stop predicting plot points i hate you/j
> 
> anyways sorry if this chapter is a little bit short it was much muccchhhhh longer so i didnt leave it on a cliffhanger but it ended up being about 17k words so uhhhhhh yeah for yalls sake i cut that shit SHORT anyways hope u enjoyed

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/tsodmike)   
>  [tumblr](https://seerofmike.tumblr.com)   
> 


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